r to him seemed trivial beside that which she must render to
herself. Her eyes watched the hens as they scratched pits in the
warm dust, snuggled down and adjusted and readjusted their
wing-feathers. But her brain was busied over and over with the same
thought--"I am now a bad woman. Is there yet any way for me to be
good?"

Yet her wits were alert enough. She heard her father's footstep on
the path twenty yards away, guessed the moment which would bring him
into sight of her. Though she did not look up, she knew that he had
come to a halt. She waited. He turned and walked slowly away.
She knew why he had faltered. Her mind ran back to the problem.
"I am a bad woman. Is there any way for me to be good?"

Half an hour passed. Emilia came round the rick, talking to herself,
holding a wooden bowl from which she had been feeding the chickens.
She came upon Hetty unawares and stood still, with a face at first
confused, but gradually hardening.

"Sit down, Emmy." Hetty pointed to a faggot lying a few paces off.

Emilia hesitated.

"You may sit down: near enough to listen--"

'Here I and sorrows sit;
Here is my throne, let Emmy bow to it.'

"You were reciting as you came along." She raised her eyes with a
grave smile. "Shall I tell you your secret?"

"What secret?" asked Emilia, reddening in spite of herself.

"Oh, I have known it a long while! But if you want me to whisper it,
you must come closer. Nay, my dear, I know very little of the
stage--perhaps as little as you: but, from what I have read, it will
bring you close to creatures worse than I."

Emilia was scared now. "Who told you? Have you heard from Jacky?--
no, he couldn't, because--"

"--Because you never told him, although you may have hinted at it.
And if you told him, he would laugh and call it the ambition of a
girl who knows nothing of the world."

"I will not starve here. And now that this--this disgrace--"

"Father would think it no less disgrace to see you an actress.
Listen: a little while ago he came this way, meaning to curse me, but
he turned back and did not. And now you come, and are confused, and
I read you just as plainly. While my wits are so clear I want to say
one or two things to you. Yesterday--only yesterday--I left home for
ever, and here I am back again. I have been wicked, you say, and
there is nothing sinful in becoming an actress. Perhaps not: yet I
am sure father would think