“Why not?” persisted Susan.
“I—I—don’t you see how weak I am?” she asked with some energy, lifting her face for a moment to Susan.
And its wan pain, its depth of anguish, disarmed Susan. Jessy looked like a once fair blossom on which a blight had passed.
“Well, Jessy, we will leave these matters until later. But there’s one thing you must answer. What induced you to take this disreputable mode of coming back?”
A dead silence.
“Could you not have written to say you were coming, as any sensible girl would, that you might have been properly met and received? Instead of appearing like a vagabond, to be picked up by anybody.”
“I never meant to come home—to the house.”
“But why?” asked Susan.
“Oh, because—because of my ingratitude in running away—and never writing—and—and all that.”
“That is, you were ashamed to come and face us.”