“Very well; which deserved to be sacrificed?” cried Edna, her eyes and tone showing that the subject was a heating one. “Which was likely to suffer more by the sacrifice? You know perfectly well fathers don't die in those cases, and consequently your father's hysterics must have been put on for effect. Oh, don't tell me!—it makes me wild to think of it! Your father would have been all right in a week; whereas the other man's whole life is darkened.”
“Don't say that, dear,” pleaded Florence, gently. “Men soon get over such things.”
“Not so awfully soon;—not sincere men. Their views of life are changed, for all time. And this man seems to grow more and more melancholy, if what Tom says is true.”
“What I say?” exclaimed Larcher.
The two girls looked at each other.
“Goodness! I have given it away!” cried Edna.
“More and more melancholy?” repeated Larcher. “Why, that must be Murray Davenport. Was he the—? Then you must be the—! But surely you wouldn't have given him up on account of the bad luck nonsense.”
“Bad luck nonsense?” echoed Edna, while Miss Kenby looked bewildered.
“The silly idea of some foolish people, that he carried bad luck with him,” Larcher explained, addressing Florence. “He sent you a letter about it.”
“I never got any such letter from him,” said Florence, in wonderment.