Rose twitched herself about.  “You can’t expect him never to marry anybody because he isn’t going to marry you,” she said, defiantly.

“I don’t—­I am not quite so selfish as that.  But he won’t ever marry anybody he don’t like because she follows him up, and I don’t see how that alters what you’ve done.”

Rose began to walk away.  Charlotte stood still, but she raised her voice.  “I am not very happy,” said she, “and I sha’n’t be happy my whole life, but I wouldn’t change places with you.  You’ve lowered yourself, and that’s worse than any unhappiness.”

Rose fled away in the darkness without another word, and Charlotte crossed the road to go to her Aunt Sylvia’s.

Rose, as she went on, felt as if all her dreams were dying within her; a dull vision of the next morning when she should awake without them weighed upon her.  She had a childish sense of shame and remorse, and a conviction of the truth of Charlotte’s words.  And yet she had an injured and bewildered feeling, as if somewhere in this terrible nature, at whose mercy she was, there was some excuse for her.

Rose was nearly home when she began to meet the people coming from meeting.  She kept close to the wall, and scudded along swiftly that no one might recognize her.  All at once a young man whom she had passed turned and walked along by her side, making a shy clutch at her arm.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said, wearily.

“Yes; do you care if I walk along with you?”

“No,” said Rose, “not if you want to.”

An old pang of gratitude came over her.  It was only the honest, overgrown boy, Tommy Ray, of the store.  She had known he worshipped her afar off; she had laughed at him and half despised him, but now she felt suddenly humble and grateful for even this devotion.  She moved her arm that he might hold it more closely.

“It’s too dark for you to be out alone,” he said, in his embarrassed, tender voice.

“Yes, it’s pretty dark,” said Rose.  Her voice shook.  They had passed the last group of returning people.  Suddenly Rose, in spite of herself, began to cry.  She sobbed wildly, and the boy, full of alarm and sympathy, walked on by her side.

“There ain’t anything—­scared you, has there?” he stammered out, awkwardly, at length.

“No,” sobbed Rose.

“You ain’t sick?”

“No, it isn’t anything.”

The boy held her arm closer; he trembled and almost sobbed himself with sympathy.  Before they reached the old tavern Rose had stopped crying—­she even tried to laugh and turn it off with a jest.  “I don’t know what got into me,” she said; “I guess I was nervous.”

“I didn’t know but something had scared you,” said the boy.

They stood on the door-steps; the house was dark.  Rose’s parents had gone to bed, and William was out.  The boy still held Rose’s arm.  He had adored her secretly ever since he was a child, and he had never dared as much as that before.  He had thought of Rose like a queen or a princess, and the thought had ennobled his boyish ignorance and commonness.