solute
fool? If you don't marry this man, your child will be illegitimate,
you'll be kicked out of decent society, and you'll bring us all to ruin
and disgrace."

Ellen burst into tears. Joanna fought back her own.

"Listen to me, Ellen."

But Ellen sobbed brokenly on. It was as if her own past had risen from
its grave and laid cold hands upon her, just when she thought it was
safely buried for ever.

"Don't you see what'll happen if you refuse to marry this man?--It'll
ruin me--it'll spoil my marriage. Tip ... Good God! he's risen to a good
deal, seeing the ideas most Englishmen have ... but now you--you--"

"Ellen, you don't mean as Tip ull get shut of you because of me?"

"No, of course I don't. But it's asking too much of him--it isn't fair
to him ... he'll think he's marrying into a fine family!"--and Ellen's
tears broke into some not very pleasant laughter--"both of us ... Oh, he
was sweet about me, he understood--but now you--you!--Whatever made you
do it, Joanna?"

"I dunno ... I loved him, and I was mad."

"I think it's horrible of you--perfectly horrible. I'd absolutely no
idea you were that sort of woman--I thought at least you were decent and
respectable.... A man you were engaged to, too. Oh, I know what you're
thinking--you're thinking I'm in the same boat as you are, but I tell
you I'm not. I was a married woman--I couldn't have married my lover,
I'd a right to take what I could get. But you could have married
yours--you were going to marry him. But you lost your head--like a
common servant--like the girl you sacked years ago when you thought I
was too young to understand anything about it. And I never landed myself
with a child--at least there was some possibility of wiping out what I'd
done when it proved a mistake, some chance of living it down--and I've
done it, I've won my way back, and now you come along and disgrace me
all over again, and the man I love ..."

Never had Ellen's voice been so like Joanna's. It had risen to a hoarse
note where it hung suspended--anyone now would know that they were
sisters.

"I tell you I'm sorry, Ellen. But I can't do nothing bout it."

"Yes, you can. You can marry this man, Hill--then no one need ever know,
Tip need never know--"

"Reckon that wouldn't keep them from knowing. They'd see as I was
getting married in a hurry--not an invitation out and my troossoo not
half ready--and then they'd count the months till the baby came. No, I
tell you, it'll