accident, or
misunderstanding. This was the sacred acknowledgment of man and
wife, and he knew that he had not meant to make it.

As he stood there, silent, she knew it too. She knew that she should
not have been his wife before anybody.

Her young face grew paler, and turned stern.

His flushed: a slow, burning, relentless flush, that betrayed him,
marking him like Cain. He lowered his eyes in the heat of it, and
stood so before the child.

She looked steadfastly at him for one instant; then she shut the
book, and turned away, delivering him from the condemning light of
her presence.

"No: I will not go to that little home with you," she said with a
grief and scorn mingled in her voice, as they might have been in the
voice of an angel.

When she looked round again, he was gone. Their ways had parted.

An hour later, Bel Bree turned the key outside her door, and with a
little leather bag in her hand, saying not a word to any one, went
down into the street.

Across the Common, and over the great hill, she walked straight to
Greenley Street, and to Miss Desire.

CHAPTER XXV.

BEL BREE'S CRUSADE: THE PREACHING.

Desire Ledwith had a great many secrets to keep. Everybody came and
told her one.

All these girls whom she knew, had histories; troubles,
perplexities, wrongs, temptations,--greater or less. Gradually, they
all confessed to her. The wrong side of the world's patchwork looked
ugly to her, sometimes.

Now, here came Bel Bree; with her story, and her little leather bag;
her homelessness, her friendlessness. No, not that; for Desire
Ledwith herself contradicted it; even Mrs. Pimminy and Miss Smalley
were a great deal better than nothing. Not friendlessness, then,
exactly; but _belonglessness_.

Desire sent down to Leicester Place for Bel's box; for Cheeps also.
Bel wrote a note to Miss Smalley, asking her to take in Bartholomew.
What came of that, I may as well tell here as anywhere; it will not
take long. It is not really an integral part of our story, but I
think you will like to know.

Miss Smalley herself answered the note. It was easy enough to evade
any close questions on her part; she thought it was "a good deal
more suitable for Bel not to stay at Mrs. Pimminy's alone, and she
wasn't an atom surprised to know she had concluded so;" besides,
Miss Smalley was very much preoccupied with her own concerns.

"There was the room," she said; "and there was the furniture. Now,
would Bel