It
isn't for myself I mind; it is for their sakes."
"I don't see," Stella answered, "how my father can blame you."
Virginia shook her head sadly.
"Your father is one of those men," she said, "who judges only by
results. He trusted me, and whether it was my fault or my misfortune, I
was a failure. Stella, does it mean so much to you, after all, that you
should keep that paper? Why don't you bring it back and be reconciled to
your father? I should be quite content to go away; anything so long as
he gets it back. Don't you understand that after he has been so kind, I
hate the feeling that I have been so abject a failure?"
Stella smiled a little bitterly.
"It is my turn," she said, "to tell you that you do not understand my
father. He would never forgive me, nor do I want him to. If you think
that I was the tool of these men Littleson and Weiss, you make a
mistake. What I did, I did for the sake of the only man I have ever
cared for. Never mind his name, never mind who he is. But if it makes my
father any happier, you can tell him that his friends are no nearer
safety now than they were when the paper was in his keeping."
Virginia looked around the room drearily.
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