them as
someone brought suddenly to bay, her hands clenched at her sides, two
flags of colour flaming in her cheeks.

"I was going to have told you," she said, addressing herself solely to
Aunt Janet, "now you have brought him in he must know it too. But I do
not need him to tell me what is the matter with me; I found it out for
myself last night. I am not ashamed, I do not even hold that I have done
anything wrong; I would have told you before only I did not know it was
going to come to this, and for the rest it was like a shut book in my
life that I did not want to have to open or look at again. I am like
Bridget Rendle," she said, head held very high. "I am going to have a
baby. Bridget was afraid and ashamed, but I am neither. I have done
nothing to be ashamed of."

The telling of it sapped at her much boasted courage, and left her
whiter than the white wall-paper; Dick could see that she had some ado
to keep back her tears.

Aunt Janet seemed to have been paralysed; she stayed where she was,
stiff, stricken, and Dick, glancing at her, thought he had never seen
such anguish and terror combined on a human face. He felt himself
completely forgotten in this crisis. The two women stared at each other.
Twice Aunt Janet moistened her lips and tried to speak, but the words
died in her throat. When she succeeded at last her voice was scarce
recognizable.

"You said--like Bridget Rendle," she whispered; "did you mean what you
said?"

"Yes," answered Joan.

The older woman turned towards the door. She walked as if blind, her
hands groping before her. "God!" Dick heard her say under her breath,
"Dear God, what have I done that this should come upon me?"

As she reached the door Joan called to her, her voice sharp with fear.
"Aunt Janet, Aunt Janet, aren't you going to say anything to me?"

"I must hold my tongue," the other answered stiffly, "or I shall curse
that which I have loved." Suddenly the anguish in her flamed to white
beat. "I would rather have known you dead," she said, and passed swiftly
from the room.

Joan took a step forward, and her foot touched on the book she had let
fall. Mechanically she stooped to pick it up, then, because her knees
were in reality giving way under her, she stumbled to the chair and sat
down again. She seemed to have forgotten the man standing by the door,
she just sat there, hands folded in her lap, with her white face and
great brown eyes looking unseeingly at the garden.