'Sympathy!' she repeats, with a scornful lip that yet trembles; '_sympathy_ from _you_, who are the cause of all my wretchedness?' 'I?' 'Yes, you!' turning upon him with gathering passion--a passion that is yet not loud in its utterance; that passes unobserved by the few listeners about the station. 'Have not you eyes to see that you are killing her? You might have set yourself a task that would do your philanthropy more credit than breaking an old friend's heart--than turning a poor little childish head.' Her voice wavers as she utters the last few words, and she stops abruptly. Perhaps it is by accident that Freddy's eye strays furtively to that spot on the platform where 'Way Out' is legibly inscribed. 'When you talk of "childish,"' he says, in an extremely pained tone, yet one of gentle remonstrance, 'you seem to forget that I am not so very old myself. You talk to me as if I were a hoary-headed old sinner. Do you remember that I shall not be twenty-one till Christmas?' She looks at him with a sort of despair. What he says is perfectly true. It seems ludicrous to arraign this pink and white boy as guilty of the tragedy of her own and Prue's lives. 'I assure you, dear,' he says, in a very caressing tone, drawing a little nearer to her side, 'I often have to tell myself that I am grown up; I am so apt to forget it.' Then, as she is silent, he goes on, 'It would make our relations so much easier, Peggy, if I could get you to believe in me a little--mutual confidence is so much the highest and wholesomest basis for human relations. I think we ought all to try and trust one another; will not you'--edging nearer still, and dropping his voice to a very persuasive whisper--'will not you trust me a little?' Peggy has heard that whisper many times before; has heard it beguiling her into frequent concessions that her judgment has disapproved. It is therefore with a very unbelieving, even if half-relenting, voice that she asks: 'How much the better shall I be if I do?' 'It makes things so much easier if one feels that one is believed in,' he says touchingly, if a little coaxingly. 'Oh, Peggy dear, will not you believe in me? Will not you trust me a little? Will not you wait--wait till I have taken my degree? _Then_ you shall see!' In his eagerness he has seized her hand, unmindful of the publicity of the place; and she, unmindful of it also, is poring in disconsolate anxiety upon his features to see if they look as if he were for once speaking the truth. 'See _what_?' she asks drily; but he apparently does not hear the direct question. 'And you will not let the Red House?' he pursues coaxingly. 'That was only a threat, was not it? Of course, I can perfectly understand your irritation; but you will not let it? Dear little house! if you only knew what a sacred spot it is to me! And you yourself, Peggy--why, you are like a limpet on your rock. You would be miserable anywhere else.'