ell it," said Annie.

"I cannot tell," said Margaret. "I have thought it all over. I cannot
tell and yet, how can I live and not tell?"

"I suppose," said Alice Mendon, "that always when people do wrong,
they have to endure punishment. I suppose that is your punishment,
Margaret. You have always loved yourself and now you will have to
despise yourself. I don't see any way out of it."

"I am not the only woman who does such things," said Margaret, and
there was defiance in her tone.

"No doubt, you have company," said Alice. "That does not make it
easier for you." Alice, large and fair in her white draperies,
towered over Margaret Edes like an embodied conscience. She was
almost unendurable, like the ideal of which the other woman had
fallen short. Her mere presence was maddening. Margaret actually
grimaced at her.

"It is easy for you to preach," said she, "very easy, Alice Mendon.
You have not a nerve in your whole body. You have not an ungratified
ambition. You neither love nor hate yourself, or other people. You
want nothing on earth enough to make the lack of it disturb you."

"How well you read me," said Alice and she smiled a large calm smile
as a statue might smile, could she relax her beautiful marble mouth.

"And as for Annie Eustace," said Margaret, "she has what I stole, and
she knows it, and that is enough for her. Oh, both of you look down
upon me and I know it."

"I look down upon you no more than I have always done," said Alice;
but Annie was silent because she could not say that truly.

"Yes, I know you have always looked down upon me, Alice Mendon," said
Margaret, "and you never had reason."

"I had the reason," said Alice, "that your own deeds have proved
true."

"You could not know that I would do such a thing. I did not know it
myself. Why, I never knew that Annie Eustace could write a book."

"I knew that a self-lover could do anything and everything to further
her own ends," said Alice in her inexorable voice, which yet
contained an undertone of pity.

She pitied Margaret far more than Annie could pity her for she had
not loved her so much. She felt the little arm tremble in her clasp
and her hand tightened upon it as a mother's might have done.

"Now, we have had enough of this," said she, "quite enough. Margaret,
you must positively go home at once. I will take your suit-case, and
return it to you to-morrow. I shall be out driving. You can get in
without being seen, can't you?"