be anything more to him!" she gasped.

"Say rather 'I _will_ never be anything more to him!'"

"Ah, and even if I would!" she cried, "I am so wretched!"

"He who will not do a thing willingly and gladly would do better to
leave it undone, and he who cares not to pray, should not fold his
hands." And Aunt Rosa turned away to the window, sat down in her easy
chair and took up her prayer-book. She left Gertrude to herself and
read her morning chapter half aloud.

The words struck the ear of the struggling girl with a wonderful force.

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not
charity--" sounded through the room.

"Charity suffereth long and is kind; beareth all things, believeth all
things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."

Had she no charity then, no true love? Ah, faith--love--how should they
remain when one has been so cruelly deceived! And her house came back
to her mind, that sad, lonely house on the edge of the wood, and her
life in the last few weeks, so frightfully bare and desolate.

And--"charity beareth all things--" it said.

"Amen!" said Aunt Rosa, aloud. And Adelaide came in, and the young wife
suddenly felt her hands drawn down and through her tears she saw
Adelaide, smilingly unlocking the bunch of keys from her own belt and
holding it out to her.

"I kept things in order as well as I knew how," she said, "it is not in
the most perfect order I know, but you must not scold me."

She felt the keys put into her nerveless hand--had she not been bowed
down into the dust?

"Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity vaunteth not itself," said
something in her heart.

"I will forgive him," said the young wife aloud. But her face was pale
and rigid.

"Forgive, with _those_ eyes?" asked Aunt Rosa. "And for what? For
believing him less than an acknowledged--well, he is dead, God forgive
him--than a man who was a perfect stranger to you? No, my little woman,
take heart and go up to your Frank and--"

"_I_ go to _him_?" she cried in cutting tones,--"_I_?" The bunch of
keys fell clanging on the floor; with trembling hands she snatched up
the dress she had worn the day before, and took the purse out of the
pocket,--the purse which contained that fatal scrap of paper. For
awhile she held the piece of paper in her hand, then she gave it to the
old lady.

"I will not seem to you so childishly perverse," she said.

Aunt Rosa put on her glasses and read it. She started,