f--what I am." And still staring up Hetty whispered a
horrible word.

"Oh hush, hush!" Molly laid a swift hand over her lips, and for a
while there was silence in the room.

"So make the most of me now," Hetty murmured, "while you have me to
hold, dear; for what I am is not mine to give."

"Hetty!" Molly drew back. "You will not go--to _him_--again?"

"If he will marry me. I do not think he will, dear: I do not think
he has the courage. But if he calls me, I will go humbly,
thankfully."

"And if not--"

Hetty turned her face aside: but after a moment she looked up,
staring, as before. There were no tears in her eyes now.

"I do not know." She was silent awhile, then went on slowly.
"But if any honest man will have me, I vow before God to marry him.
Yes, and I would take his hand and bless it for so much honour, were
he the lowest hind in the fields."

Molly choked down a cry and held her breath. Her arms slipped from
around the dear body she could have saved from fire, from drowning,
from anything but this. This pair had loved and honoured each other
from babyhood: the heart of each had been a shrine for the other,
daily decked with pretty thoughts as a shrine with flowers in season.
All that was best they had brought each other: how much at need they
were ready to give God alone knew. And now, by the law which in Eden
divided woman from man, the basest stranger among the millions of men
held the power denied to Molly, the only salvation for Hetty's need.
"What I am is not mine to give"--for a minute Molly bowed over her
sister, helpless.

"But no," she cried suddenly, "that is wicked! It would be a thousand
times worse than the other, however bad. You shall take no such
oath! You did not know what it meant. Hetty, Hetty, take it back!"

She flung herself forward sobbing.

"I have said it," Hetty answered quietly. The two lay shuddering,
breast to breast.

Downstairs a sad-eyed woman sat over the dead fire. She heard a
chair pushed back in the next room, and trembled. By and by she
heard her husband trying the bolts of the doors and window-shutters.
He looked into the kitchen and, finding her there seated with the
lamp beside her, withdrew without a word. She had not raised her
head. His footsteps went up the stair slowly.

For another hour, almost, she sat on, staring at the gray ashes: then
took the lamp and went shivering to her room.

CHAPTER IV.

The worst (or perhaps