“God knows I wished to keep it from you.”
“Well, no matter now. Let him go free if he wants to. I can't help it.”
“You can help it,” interrupted her father. “You've got the facts on your side, and you've got the witnesses!”
“Would you go out with me, and tell him that I never meant to leave him?” she asked simply, turning to Halleck. “You—and Olive?”
“We would do anything for you, Marcia!”
She sat musing, and drawing her hands one over the other again, while her quivering breath came and went on the silence. She let her hands fall nervelessly on her lap. “I can't go; I'm too weak; I couldn't bear the journey. No!” She shook her head. “I can't go!”
“Marcia,” began her father, “it's your duty to go!”
“Does it say in the law that I have to go, if I don't choose?” she asked of Halleck.
“No, you certainly need not go, if you don't choose!”
“Then I will stay. Do you think it's my duty to go?” she asked, referring her question first to Halleck and then to Atherton. She turned from the silence by which they tried to leave her free. “I don't care for my duty, any more. I don't want to keep him, if it's so that he—left me—and—and meant it—and he doesn't—care for me any—more.”