The soft touch of Hope's hand, the soft tone, so full of pity it sounded like love, seemed to surprise Dorothea out of her gathering wrath for a moment, and her own fingers closing over Hope's with a sudden clinging movement, she answered hastily,—
"Yes, yes, I'll listen, I'll listen; go on, go on!"
And Hope, holding the girl's hand with that soft, firm touch, went on to tell her the story that was so difficult for her to tell,—that "whole truth" that she had decided that Dorothea must now know once for all. As gently as possible, the talk with Bessie, the interview with Mrs. Armitage was given; nothing, not even the reference to the New Year's party episode and its prejudicial effect, being withheld; and yet through it all Dorothea made no interruption, made no sign to show her feeling, beyond now and then a convulsive clutch at the hand that was holding hers, and a gradual fading away of the hot red color that had suffused her face at the start. As Hope felt this clutch of her fingers now and then, as she saw toward the end of her story the increasing pallor of her companion's face, she could not help a thrill of apprehension, for these signs seemed to her the signs of a storm that would presently break forth; and as she came to the end, the very end of what she had to say, she had a feeling of trying to steady herself, to hold herself in readiness to argue or assert or soothe, whichever method might seem best suited to stem or stay the outbreak she expected. But what—what did this mean—this dead silence that followed, when she had ceased speaking? Was this the calm before the dreaded storm? And Hope, who had lowered her eyes toward the end of her story, instinctively looked up,—looked up to see great tears rolling down the colorless cheeks before her, and over all the face a pale passion of emotion that did not seem to be the passion of anger. Could it be the passion of pain only? Could it be that there was to be no storm of angry protest and defiance even at the very first? No, there was to be no storm of that kind. Dorothea had again surprised her!
CHAPTER XXV.
But as the fears and apprehensions that beset her began to lessen, Hope's pity and sympathy rose afresh, and with added vigor. She was thinking how best to express this pity and sympathy without striking a note of criticism that might injure the effect of what she had placed before Dorothea, when Dorothea herself showed the way, as she suddenly said,—
"There's no use for me to stay here any longer. I'd better go home, where people know me, and—and don't think my ways are so dreadful."
There was no angry temper in this speech. Though the tone was rather morose and bitter, it seemed to spring from a sudden appalled sense of defeat and danger such as she had never heretofore experienced. And this was just the situation. Hope's tact and kindness had presented the whole truth so carefully that petty irritation was swallowed up in the something serious that Dorothea herself but half comprehended, but from which her first instinct was to flee,—to go home where people knew her and didn't think her ways so dreadful.
But, "No, no," Hope urged against this desire. "You must stay, Dorothea,—stay and take a better place than you've ever taken before with us; for you can, oh, you can, Dorothea. You can make us all love and admire you if you have a mind to, if you won't—won't be quite so headlong, so—so sure you are right in some things, so—childish in some ways."
"I childish! 'Tisn't childishness your Mrs. Armitage is finding fault with!" blurted out Dorothea, in a bitter yet broken tone.