“You’ve always been extremely kind,” she said in a low voice, half-choked with emotion. “And now that I find you alone, I feel impelled to confide in you and seek your advice.”
“I’m quite ready to offer any advice I can,” I answered, quickly interested. “If I can render you any assistance I will certainly do so with pleasure.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed, sighing again, “I knew you would. I am in trouble—in such terrible trouble.”
“What has happened?” I inquired quickly, for I saw how white and wan she was, and of course attributed it to Dick’s action in renouncing his pledge.
“You, of course, know that Mr Cleugh and I have parted,” she said, looking up at me quickly.
“He has told me so,” I responded gravely. “I regret very much to hear it. What is the reason?”
“Has he not told you?” she asked, her eyes filled with tears.
“No,” I answered. “He gave no reason.”
“Well,” she explained, “he has judged me wrongly. I am entirely innocent, I assure you. In a place of business like ours we are compelled to be on friendly terms with the male assistants, and the other evening, as I was leaving the shop to go to the house where we girls live, at the other end of Rye Lane, one of the men—an insufferable young fellow in the hosiery department—chanced to be going the same way and walked with me.
“On the way, Dick—Mr Cleugh, I mean—passed us, and now he declares that I’ve been in the habit of flirting with these men. It is not pleasant for any girl to walk alone along Rye Lane at ten o’clock at night, therefore this young fellow was only escorting me out of politeness. Yet I cannot make Dick believe otherwise than that he is my lover.”