. Despise me if you will; you cannot
so do more than I despise myself. 'Tis ill work despising one's self;
but I must, and as penalty for mine evil deeds I am forcing myself to
own them to you. You refuse to leave me, for my mother's sake, to go to
an ill end; neither will I so leave you."

"When heard you me so to speak, Gertrude?"

"Not an hour since, Aunt Grena."

"You were not present!"

"I was, little as you guessed it. I was behind the arras."

"Wicked, mean, dishonourable girl!" cried Mistress Grena, in a mixture
of horror, confusion, and alarm.

"I own it, Aunt Grena," said Gertrude, with a quiet humility which was
not natural to her, and which touched Grena against her will. "But hear
me out, I pray you, for 'tis of moment to us all that you should so do."

A silent inclination of her aunt's head granted her permission to
proceed.

"The last time that I went to shrift, Father Bastian bade me tell him if
I knew of a surety that you or my father had any thought to leave Kent.
That could not I say, of course, and so much I told him. Then he bade
me be diligent and discover the same. `But after what fashion?' said I;
for I do ensure you that his meaning came not into mine head afore he
spake it in plain language. When at last I did conceive that he would
have me to spy upon you, at the first I was struck with horror. You had
so learned me, Aunt Grena, that the bare thought of such a thing was
hateful unto me. This methinks he perceived, and he set him to reason
with me, that the command of holy Church sanctified the act done for her
service, which otherwise had been perchance unmeet to be done. Still I
yielded not, and then he told me flat, that without I did this thing he
would not grant me absolution of my sins. Then, but not till then, I
gave way. I hid me behind the arras this morning, looking that you
should come to hold discourse in that chamber where, saving for meat,
you knew I was not wont to be. I hated the work no whit less than at
the first; but the fear of holy Church bound me. I heard you say, Aunt
Grena"--Gertrude's voice softened as Grena had rarely heard it--"that
you would not leave Father and me--that you could not be happy touching
me--that I had no mother save you, and you would not cast me aside to go
to an ill end. I saw that Father reckoned it should be to your own hurt
if you tarried. And it struck me to the heart that you should be
thinking to serve me the while I