his heart must break. It was as if he looked on
while Sylvia drowned, and could not put forth a hand to save her.

She conquered her emotion. She only hoped that Harboro would hear her to
the end. She resumed: "And when I began to see that people are expected to
shape their own lives, mine had already been shaped. I couldn't begin at a
beginning, really; I had to begin in the middle. I had to go on weaving
the threads that were already in my hands--the soiled threads. I met nice
women after a while--women from the San Antonio missions, I think they
were; and they were kind to me and gave me books to read. One of them took
me to the chapel--where the clock ticked. But they couldn't really help
me. I think they did influence me more than I realized, possibly; for my
father began to tell them I wasn't at home ... and he brought me out here
to Eagle Pass soon after they began to befriend me."

Harboro was staring at her with a vast incredulity. "And then--?" he
asked.

"And then it went on out here--though it seemed different out here. I had
the feeling of being shut out, here. In a little town people know. Life in
a little town is like just one checker-board, with a game going on; but
the big towns are like a lot of checkerboards, with the men on some of
them in disorder, and not being watched at all."

Harboro was shaking his head slowly, and she made an effort to wipe some
of the blackness from the picture. "You needn't believe I didn't have
standards that I kept to. Some women of my kind would have lied or stolen,
or they would have made mischief for people. And then there were the young
fellows, the mere boys.... It's a real injury to them to find that a girl
they like is--is not nice. They're so wonderfully ignorant. A woman is
either entirely good or entirely bad in their eyes. You couldn't really do
anything to destroy their faith, even when they pretended to be rather
rough and wicked. I wasn't that kind of a bad woman, at least."

Harboro's brow had become furrowed, with impatience, seemingly. "But your
marriage to me, Sylvia?" He put the question accusingly.

"I thought you knew--at first. I thought you _must_ know. There are men
who will marry the kind of woman I was. And it isn't just the little or
worthless men, either. Sometimes it is the big men, who can understand and
be generous. Up to the time of our marriage I thought you knew and that
you were forgiving everything. And at last I couldn't bear to tel