`` If you go after Bessy any more you can take the consequences . '' She drew her shawl about her pale , malicious face and left him with a parting glance of contempt . `` I guess that 'll settle him , '' she thought grimly . `` Bessy Houghton turned up her nose at George , but she sha n't make a fool of Lawrence too . '' Alone in the stable Lawrence stood staring out at the dull red ball of the winter sun with unseeing eyes . He had implicit faith in his mother , and the stab had gone straight to his heart . Bessy Houghton listened in vain that night for his well-known footfall on the verandah . The next night Lawrence went home with Milly Fiske from prayer meeting , taking her out from a crowd of other girls under Bessy Houghton 's very eyes as she came down the steps of the little church . Bessy walked home alone . The light burned low in her sitting-room , and in the mirror over the mantel she saw her own pale face , with its tragic , pain-stricken eyes . Annie Hillis , her `` help , '' was out . She was alone in the big house with her misery and despair . She went dizzily upstairs to her own room and flung herself on the bed in the chill moonlight . `` It is all over , '' she said dully . All night she lay there , fighting with her pain . In the wan , grey morning she looked at her mirrored self with pitying scorn -- at the pallid face , the lifeless features , the dispirited eyes with their bluish circles . `` What a fool I have been to imagine he could care for me ! '' she said bitterly . `` He has only been amusing himself with my folly . And to think that I let him kiss me the other night ! ''
She thought of that kiss XXXXX a pitiful shame .
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