Diane walked about restlessly, lifting up and setting down first one thing and then another, unaware of what she did.
“I—I couldn’t stay, Fanny!”
The other girl did not follow her with her eyes. Instead, Fanny sat looking out of the window at a shower that was driving across the campus, the sun breaking through the clouds in time to make it a rain of gold.
“I suppose you couldn’t, Di. I think I know just how you felt, but—well, it makes me pity him the more!”
Diane faced her passionately.
“How can you, Fanny? How can you pity him more than I do? I loved him!”
“Yes, I know; but when you knew what he’d done, you ceased to love him. Wasn’t that it, Di? You see I—I suppose I’m a weaker mortal. I couldn’t do that. I should keep on loving him—well, just because I should feel he needed it so much!”
“Would you?” Diane came slowly nearer, looking at her friend imploringly, her face colorless. “Fanny, do you think that’s it? That’s what I’ve asked myself a hundred times. Do you think I—I never really loved him?”
“Oh, that’s too much to say! I couldn’t judge for you, Di, we’re—we’re so different. I suppose I’m like—like the dog that keeps going back to lick the hand that’s struck him. If I loved any one, I couldn’t—I simply couldn’t turn on them like that!”
“I didn’t think I could, either; but when he told me what he’d done—Fanny, I can’t tell you how I felt. I felt as if something had died in my heart. I couldn’t even look at him again without seeing him in flight and—and Overton alone, deserted in the snow and ice, left to die!” She covered her face with her hands, shuddering. “I could have forgiven him a sin against myself far more easily. I could have forgiven even dishonesty, but that—Fanny, I—I couldn’t, I can’t!”