or,
isn't it?"

"It's a great impertinence," exclaimed Kate.

Jacqueline flushed. "Mummy, dear, you've never been quite fair to Mr.
Channing, and--it's not like you. If you realized how much I--I cared
for him, you would be fairer.--Mother, I want to tell you something, now
that it's all done and over."

Kate braced herself for what she knew was coming.

"I--I kept on seeing Mr. Channing, even after you told me not to--You
never made _me_ promise anything, you know."

"I trusted you."

"Yes, but it isn't fair to trust people when they don't want you to! If
you had asked me any questions, I think I should have told you the
truth--I _think_ so. But you didn't ask me any questions.--It wasn't his
fault, Mummy. I made him come. I used to meet him in the Ruin every
night." She peered at her mother anxiously, and Kate got up abruptly and
crossed the room so that her face should not be visible.

"That isn't all," went on the hurried voice, rather breathless now. "You
see--it didn't seem very honorable, somehow, to go on meeting him like
that, on your place, when you didn't know about it--"

"No," agreed Kate.

"So--so I thought I'd just better go away with him.--Oh, he didn't ask
me to, he didn't really want me to--he said it was too much of a
sacrifice to ask of me. But--you and I know, Mother, don't we? that
there's no sacrifice too great to make when you love a man!"

"Oh, my little girl," groaned Kate, "how could you love him like that
when you knew about--that woman, knew what sort of man he was?"

Jacqueline said eagerly, "But he explained all about that woman. He
never really loved her at all, but he was lonely, and she was very
beautiful and fascinating, as that sort of woman knows how to
be. And artistic people are so susceptible. It was a sort of
experiment--experience is an author's stock in trade, you know." (Kate
could almost hear Channing saying it.) "It turned out wrong, of course.
Why, Mother, she was _horrid_! The fact that a bad woman had got hold of
him was all the more reason for a good woman to--to win him back. Oh, I
suppose he was weak--I know he was--but weak people are the very ones
who need us most, Mother, aren't they?"

Kate came behind her chair and laid her cheek on the girl's hair. "Don't
say anything more, dear. I know, I understand. Surely nobody, neither
God nor man, can condemn us women for our divine gift of pity."

But Jacqueline had dedicated herself to honesty that day. "I