you, of course--but of some other woman whom
you know?"

Her head sank slowly on her bosom. He had plainly no suspicion that she
had been speaking of herself: his tone and manner both answered for it
that his belief in her was as strong as ever. Still those last words
made her tremble; she could not trust herself to reply to them.

He accepted the bending of her head as a reply.

"Are you interested in her?" he asked next.

She faintly answered this time. "Yes."

"Have you encouraged her?"

"I have not dared to encourage her."

His face lighted up suddenly with enthusiasm. "Go to her," he said, "and
let me go with you and help you!"

The answer came faintly and mournfully. "She has sunk too low for that!"

He interrupted her with a gesture of impatience.

"What has she done?" he asked.

"She has deceived--basely deceived--innocent people who trusted her. She
has wronged--cruelly wronged--another woman."

For the first time Julian seated himself at her side. The interest that
was now roused in him was an interest above reproach. He could speak to
Mercy without restraint; he could look at Mercy with a pure heart.

"You judge her very harshly," he said. "Do _you_ know how she may have
been tried and tempted?"

There was no answer.

"Tell me," he went on, "is the person whom she has injured still
living?"

"Yes."

"If the person is still living, she may atone for the wrong. The time
may come when this sinner, too, may win our pardon and deserve our
respect."

"Could _you_ respect her?" Mercy asked, sadly. "Can such a mind as yours
understand what she has gone through?"

A smile, kind and momentary, brightened his attentive face.

"You forget my melancholy experience," he answered. "Young as I am, I
have seen more than most men of women who have sinned and suffered. Even
after the little that you have told me, I think I can put myself in
her place. I can well understand, for instance, that she may have been
tempted beyond human resistance. Am I right?"

"You are right."

"She may have had nobody near at the time to advise her, to warn her, to
save her. Is that true?"

"It is true."

"Tempted and friendless, self-abandoned to the evil impulse of the
moment, this woman may have committed herself headlong to the act which
she now vainly repents. She may long to make atonement, and may not
know how to begin. All her energies may be crushed under the despair and
horror of herself, out of which th