ur mind to lead you to speak like that?"

"Miss Vye, why should you make believe that you don't know this
man?--I know why, certainly. He is beneath you, and you are ashamed."

"You are mistaken. What do you mean?"

The reddleman had decided to play the card of truth. "I was at the
meeting by Rainbarrow last night and heard every word," he said. "The
woman that stands between Wildeve and Thomasin is yourself."

It was a disconcerting lift of the curtain, and the mortification of
Candaules' wife glowed in her. The moment had arrived when her lip
would tremble in spite of herself, and when the gasp could no longer
be kept down.

"I am unwell," she said hurriedly. "No--it is not that--I am not in a
humour to hear you further. Leave me, please."

"I must speak, Miss Vye, in spite of paining you. What I would put
before you is this. However it may come about--whether she is to
blame, or you--her case is without doubt worse than yours. Your
giving up Mr. Wildeve will be a real advantage to you, for how could
you marry him? Now she cannot get off so easily--everybody will blame
her if she loses him. Then I ask you--not because her right is best,
but because her situation is worst--to give him up to her."

"No--I won't, I won't!" she said impetuously, quite forgetful of her
previous manner towards the reddleman as an underling. "Nobody has
ever been served so! It was going on well--I will not be beaten
down--by an inferior woman like her. It is very well for you to come
and plead for her, but is she not herself the cause of all her own
trouble? Am I not to show favour to any person I may choose without
asking permission of a parcel of cottagers? She has come between me
and my inclination, and now that she finds herself rightly punished
she gets you to plead for her!"

"Indeed," said Venn earnestly, "she knows nothing whatever about it.
It is only I who ask you to give him up. It will be better for her
and you both. People will say bad things if they find out that a lady
secretly meets a man who has ill-used another woman."

"I have NOT injured her--he was mine before he was hers! He came
back--because--because he liked me best!" she said wildly. "But I
lose all self-respect in talking to you. What am I giving way to!"

"I can keep secrets," said Venn gently. "You need not fear. I am the
only man who knows of your meetings with him. There is but one thing
more to speak of, and then I will be gone. I heard you say to h