human
It’s me!
gpt
Run along, Dorothy! Peggy was too absorbed in the problem confronting her to make her request tactful. She went over to Ruth, who was making a brave struggle to regain her self-control, and possessing herself of the limp hand, stroked it tenderly. Then Peggy’s instinct to make excuses for everybody, led her to say,
human
After all, perhaps we’re making a mountain out of a mole-hill.
gpt
Mole-hill! exclaimed Ruth indignantly.
human
How you can call it a mole-hill for Graham to take his father’s money and pretend it’s for things at college when all the time--
gpt
O, yes, I know. But there’s a chance of a mistake, Peggy protested,
human
I don’t suppose you’ve talked with Graham about it?
gpt
Goodness, no! I went up to his room this morning to do the work and this letter lay on the floor, not even in the envelope.
human
That doesn’t look as if he were ashamed of it,
gpt
O, that’s Graham all over. No matter what he did, he’d be too careless to cover his tracks. I picked it up and looked at it to see if it was meant to be thrown away or not, and then my eye caught that about the pendant, and I simply couldn’t stop. And after I saw what it meant it seemed to me that I should die if I didn’t tell somebody.
human
But, Ruth, Peggy protested, alarmed,
gpt
O, Peggy! she cried in a stifled voice,
human
she added despairingly.
gpt
But think, Peggy, of telling your brother that you know he has been cheating your father, and being mean and underhanded, all the time that he talked so beautifully about how grateful he was for what had been done for him, and how hard he was going to try to make us all proud of him.
human
Then, I suppose, said Peggy, after a long pause,
gpt
Father! Ruth spoke the word with a little protesting cry.
human
Why, it would kill father to know such a thing about Graham. He never could bear it.
gpt
Ruth, this is too serious a thing for two girls like us to keep to ourselves. Somebody’s got to know, somebody who’ll understand what to do.
human
You don’t mean that you’ll tell. Peggy, you couldn’t be so--so dishonorable as to tell. I came to you because I had to confide in somebody. And, now, if I can’t trust you--
gpt
O, good gracious! exclaimed Peggy with an irritation of which she was immediately ashamed.
human
Of course I’m not going to tell. But _you_ are. Ruth, you must.