There was a little silence, and then Mr. Green went over and sat down by the girl. "Tell me," he said, "what is the matter?" She buried her face in her hands and shuddered. "Tell me," he repeated again, in a tender voice. "Trust me, won't you?"  
And suddenly she looked up at him, the tears streaming from her eyes. "Oh," she pleaded, "have mercy on me! I can't do it—I can't! You don't know how miserable I am."
 
Robbie—one is moved intuitively to call him "Robbie" again at such a time, even though his hair is now an iron-gray—Robbie was gazing at the perfect face, and thinking that he had never seen anything so wonderful in his life before. "Listen," he said very gently. "You have no reason to be afraid of me. Tell me what is the matter, tell me how you come to be in such a place as this."
 
[74]The girl gazed at him with her frightened eyes; she choked back a sob. "I have only been here a few hours," she said. "And I cannot stay—oh, I cannot!"
 
"Tell me about it," said he.
 
She sat kneading her hands together nervously. "I came from the country," she said. "It is the old story—it will not interest you. My father was dead, and my mother dead, and then I had no money, and had to work. And then I loved a young man—"
 
She made a sudden gesture of despair, and stopped. "Go on," said the other, tenderly.
 
"It was only last week that I saw him last," she said, "and now I shall never see him again. He begged me to go and live with him—that was in the beginning. He was very rich, and so his parents would not let him marry me. But I loved him, so I did not care; I only wanted to be with him. That was a year ago; and then he went away and left me[75]—he said his parents had found it out. I heard he had gone to New York, and I followed him—spent all I owned to come. And of course I could not find him; and I could find nothing to do—I walked the streets all last night, and the night before. And then this was all that there was left—I was nearly dead."
 
The girl had flushed with excitemen............