eyed. "I don't want Irene in
here. There's nothing the matter. Only, Mr. Corey offered himself to
me last night."

Her mother remained looking at her, helpless, not so much with amaze,
perhaps, as dismay. "Oh, I'm not a ghost! I wish I was! You had better
sit down, mother. You have got to know all about it."

Mrs. Lapham dropped nervelessly into the chair at the other window, and
while the girl went slowly but briefly on, touching only the vital
points of the story, and breaking at times into a bitter drollery, she
sat as if without the power to speak or stir.

"Well, that's all, mother. I should say I had dreamt, it, if I had
slept any last night; but I guess it really happened."

The mother glanced round at the bed, and said, glad to occupy herself
delayingly with the minor care: "Why, you have been sitting up all
night! You will kill yourself."

"I don't know about killing myself, but I've been sitting up all
night," answered the girl. Then, seeing that her mother remained
blankly silent again, she demanded, "Why don't you blame me, mother?
Why don't you say that I led him on, and tried to get him away from
her? Don't you believe I did?"

Her mother made her no answer, as if these ravings of self-accusal
needed none. "Do you think," she asked simply, "that he got the idea
you cared for him?"

"He knew it! How could I keep it from him? I said I didn't--at first!"

"It was no use," sighed the mother. "You might as well said you did.
It couldn't help Irene any, if you didn't."

"I always tried to help her with him, even when I----"

"Yes, I know. But she never was equal to him. I saw that from the
start; but I tried to blind myself to it. And when he kept coming----"

"You never thought of me!" cried the girl, with a bitterness that
reached her mother's heart. "I was nobody! I couldn't feel! No one
could care for me!" The turmoil of despair, of triumph, of remorse and
resentment, which filled her soul, tried to express itself in the words.

"No," said the mother humbly. "I didn't think of you. Or I didn't
think of you enough. It did come across me sometimes that may
be----But it didn't seem as if----And your going on so for Irene----"

"You let me go on. You made me always go and talk with him for her,
and you didn't think I would talk to him for myself. Well, I didn't!"

"I'm punished for it. When did you--begin to care for him!"

"How do I know? What difference does it make? It's a