"Yes, that's the way it must have been," admitted the girl, "and it seems strange for you to be here when I have thought I'd perhaps never see you again."
"So you really thought I was done for?" he said, trying to assume a calmness he was far from feeling under the titillating spell her beauty and sweet, musical voice had cast over him.
"Yes, mother often declared it was so, and then—" She broke off, her color rising slightly.
"And, then, Virginia—?" he reminded her, eagerly.
She looked him frankly in the eyes; it was the old, fearless, childlike glance that had told him long ago of her strong, inherent nobility of character.
"Well, I really thought if you had been alive you'd have come back to your mother. You would have written, anyway. She's been in a pitiful condition, Mr. King."
"I know it now, Virginia," he said, his cheeks hot with shame. "I'm afraid you'll never understand how a sane man could have acted as I have, but I went away furious with her and her husband, and I never allowed my mind to dwell in tenderness on her."
"That was no excuse," the girl said, still firmly, though her eyes were averted. "She had a right to marry again, and, if you and her husband couldn't get along together, that did not release you from your duty to see that she was given ordinary comfort. I've seen her walk by here and stop to rest, when it looked like she could hardly drag one foot after another. The thought came to me once that she was starving to give what she had to eat to the others."
"You needn't tell me about it," he faltered, the flames of his shame mounting high in his face—"I stayed there last night. I saw enough to drag my soul out of my body. Don't form hasty judgment yet, Virginia. You shall see that I'll do my duty now. I'll work my hands to the bone."
"Well, I'm glad to hear you talk that way," the girl answered. "It would make her so happy to have help from you."