"Sally! Sally!" said Fox tenderly. He saw her condition. "Don't tell me any more now if it distresses you."
"I may as well," she replied as well as she could. She smiled up at him, but her chin quivered more and more. "I may as well—now as well as another time. For—for I've got to tell you, Fox." She looked at him imploringly. "I've got to tell somebody, and the somebody is always you." She smiled again tearfully, and looked away again. Fox could not stand many such smiles. He would—would do something, he did not know just what; but he sat gazing at her with infinite tenderness and pity, saying nothing.
"My father is employed in—in the house that we went to," she resumed at last; "the house where Charlie has been playing. He deals the cards—or something. He must have known!" Two tears fell into her lap. "To think that my father has fallen to that!—has fallen so low! And when Charlie said that to him," she cried desperately, "it almost b—broke my heart."
Her voice shook and suddenly she bowed her head upon her arms, which were resting on the table, and broke into a passion of tears; wild weeping, such as Fox had never known—had never supposed could come from her. She had always seemed so beautifully poised, so steady and so sturdy; like a rock, on which others built their foundations. But the rod had smitten her and the springs were unbound. He had a wild desire to take her in his arms.
But he didn't—then. He only murmured something meant to be comforting. God knew he wanted to comfort her; wanted to as he had never wanted anything in his life before. He would, if he only knew how. But the wild weeping had given way to a subdued sobbing.
"And—it—it alm—most b—broke my heart," she sobbed, "to re—refuse what he asked. B—but I had to do it. I h—had to do it, Fox. I c—couldn't do anything else." She caught her breath. She could not go on for a minute.
Only an inarticulate murmur came from Fox.
"Father was such a pathetic figure!" Sally went on a soon as she could speak. "Of course I know that he is not always so—that he is seldom so. There were mother and Charlie to think of. But it seemed so terrible! And he was so patient under Charlie's—treatment—his own father! I can't get him out of my—"
Her wild weeping, restrained for a moment, broke out again.
"Sally!" Fox murmured, leaning forward and laying a hand upon her knee. "Sally, dear!"