e she was, without stirring a limb; but her mind had
been active, and she had determined that she would submit in silence
to no rebukes. Any commands from her aunt, save one, she would
endeavour to obey; but from all accusations as to impropriety of
conduct she would defend herself with unabashed spirit. Her aunt came
up close to her; and, putting out one hand, with the palm turned
towards her, raising it as high as her shoulder, seemed to wave her
away. "Linda," said Madame Staubach, "you are a castaway."

"I am no castaway, aunt Charlotte," said Linda, almost jumping from
her feet, and screaming in her self-defence.

"You will not frighten me by your wicked violence. You have--lied to
me;--have lied to me. Yes; and that after all that I said to you as
to the heinousness of such wickedness. Linda, it is my belief that
you knew that he was coming when you kept your bed on that Sabbath
morning."

"If you choose to have such thoughts of me in your heart, aunt
Charlotte, I cannot help it. I knew nothing of his coming. I would
have given all I had to prevent it. Yes,--though his coming could do
me no real harm. My good name is more precious to me than anything
short of my self-esteem. Nothing even that you can say shall rob me
of that."

Madame Staubach was almost shaken by the girl's firmness,--by that,
and by her own true affection for the sinner. In her bosom, what
remained of the softness of womanhood was struggling with the
hardness of the religious martinet, and with the wilfulness of the
domestic tyrant. She had promised to Steinmarc that she would be very
stern. Steinmarc had pointed out to her that nothing but the hardest
severity could be of avail. He, in telling his story, had taken it
for granted that Linda had expected her lover, had remained at home
on purpose that she might receive her lover, and had lived a life
of deceit with her aunt for months past. When Madame Staubach had
suggested that the young man's coming might have been accidental, he
had treated the idea with ridicule. He, as the girl's injured suitor,
was, he declared, obliged to treat such a suggestion as altogether
incredible, although he was willing to pardon the injury done to him,
if a course of intense severity and discipline were at once adopted,
and if this were followed by repentance which to him should appear to
be sincere. When he took this high ground, as a man having authority,
and as one who knew the world, he had carried Madam