She shrugs her shoulders dispiritedly.
'I do not know—somewhere—anywhere—out of this misery.'
Her whole attitude and accent speak so deep a despondency that Freddy's tendency to gaiety disappears. He feels thoroughly uncomfortable; he wishes he had not come. He would like exceedingly to slip away even now; but unfortunately it is impossible.
'My dearest Peg,' he cries, in a very feeling voice, 'you break my heart! You are always so self-sufficing, so apt to rebut sympathy, that one hardly likes to offer it; but if——'
'Sympathy!' she repeats, with a scornful lip that yet trembles; 'sympathy from you, who are the cause of all my wretchedness?'
'I?'
'Yes, you!' turning upon him with gathering passion—a passion that is yet not loud in its utterance; that passes unobserved by the few listeners about the station. 'Have not you eyes to see that you are killing her? You might have set yourself a task that would do your philanthropy more credit than breaking an old friend's heart—than turning a poor little childish head.'
Her voice wavers as she utters the last few words, and she stops abruptly. Perhaps it is by accident that Freddy's eye strays furtively to that spot on the platform where 'Way Out' is legibly inscribed.
'When you talk of "childish,"' he says, in an extremely pained tone, yet one of gentle remonstrance, 'you seem to forget that I am not so very old myself. You talk to me as if I were a hoary-headed old sinner. Do you remember that I shall not be twenty-one till Christmas?' She looks at him with a sort of despair. What he says is perfectly true. It seems ludicrous to arraign this pink and white boy as guilty of the tragedy of her own and Prue's lives. 'I assure you, dear,' he says, in a very caressing tone, drawing a little nearer to her side, 'I often have to tell myself that I am grown up; I am so apt to forget it.' Then, as she is silent, he goes on, 'It would make our relations so much easier, Peggy, if I could get you to believe in me a little—mutual confidence is so much the highest and wholesomest basis for human relations. I think we ought all to try and trust one another; will not you'—edging nearer still, and dropping his voice to a very persuasive whisper—'will not you trust me a little?'
Peggy has heard that whisper many times before; has heard it beguiling her into frequent concessions that her judgment has disapproved. It is therefore with a very unbelieving, even if half-relenting, voice that she asks: