“To your sweetheart?”
“No, I ain’t countin’ him. I’ve been writin’ to him a long time; he says one kind of spelling is just as good to him as another, but this letter I wrote to—to—Paris—to Dr. Paul Crossett.”
It was out now, and she was afraid to look at him. In spite of the dependence he had grown to have upon her, she was still very much in awe of him, and she dreaded to hear the reproach that she knew would be in his voice.
“Maria!” It was there, he was angry. She knew that he would be, but she also knew that it had been her duty to do what she had done. “You—Maria—you would not tell him——?”
“I told him everything!” She burst out, “I told him you was just killin’ yourself, sittin’ here, an’ thinkin’, an’ breakin’ your heart. All day an’ all night. I told him that the best man I ever knew was just letting himself fade out and die. And I told him that if he was the friend I thought he was he’d come here and do something.”
“Maria!” He spoke sternly now. “You had no right.”
“I know it.”
“I am very angry with you. I—I wish that you had told me of it.”
“You would have stopped me, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”