Julia's eyes met his squarely across the lamplight.
"That," she said simply.
There was a silence, and no change of expression on either face. Then
Jim stood up.
"I don't believe it!" he said, with a short laugh.
"It's true," said Julia. "I was not fifteen. How long ago it was! Nobody
has ever known--you need not have known. But I am glad I told you. I
have been thinking of nothing else but telling you for two days and two
nights. And sometimes I would say to myself that what that old little
ignorant Julia did would not concern you--"
Jim made an inarticulate sound, from where he sat with his elbows on his
knees, with his face dropped in his hands.
"But I see it does concern you!" Julia said, quickly, with great
simplicity. "I--luckily I decided to tell you this morning," she said,
"for I am absolutely exhausted now. It was a terrible thing to keep
thinking about, and I could not have fought it out any longer! There
were extenuating circumstances, I suppose. I was a spoiled little
empty-headed girl; the girls all about me were reckless in everyway; I
did not know the boundary-line, or dream that it mattered very much, so
long as no one knew! My mother had been unhappy in my childhood, and
used to talk a good deal about the disappointment of marriage.
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