here when he comes," said
she.

"All the time?"

"Most of the time."

"Well, I must not catechise you. No one woman has the right to do that
to another, and you are sweet to have answered me at all. I think you
are good and true; and you will therefore find it all the easier to
sympathize with my motives, which have your own good at heart, as well
as my son's. First of all, do you understand that my son is very much in
love with you?"

"I--you should not ask me--I may have thought that he liked me.
Has--he--told you so?"

"He has never mentioned your name to me. I never knew of your existence
till yesterday. But it is so; he is fond of you, to such an unusual
extent, that quite a scandal has arisen in his social set--"

"Not about me?"

"Yes."

"But there is nothing----"

"Yes; it is reported that he intends to marry you."

"And is that what the scandal is about? I thought the scandal was when
you did not marry, not when you did."

Mrs. Carshaw permitted herself to be surprised. She had not looked for
such weapons in Winifred's armory. But she was there to carry out what
she deemed an almost sacred mission, and the righteous can be horribly
unjust.

"Yes, in the middle classes, but not in the upper, which has its own
moral code--not a strictly Biblical one, perhaps," she retorted glibly.
"With us the scandal is not that you and my son are friends, but that he
should seriously think of marrying you, since you are on such different
levels. You see, I speak plainly."

Winifred suddenly covered her face with her hands. For the first time
she measured the great gulf yawning between her and that dear hope
growing up in her heart.

"That is how the matter stands before marriage," went on Mrs. Carshaw,
sure that she was kind in being merciless. "You can conceive how it
would be afterwards. And society is all nature--it never forgives; or,
if it forgives, it may condone sins, but never an indiscretion. Nor must
you think that your love would console my son for the great social loss
which his connection with you threatens to bring on him. It will console
him for a month, but a wife is not a world, nor, however beloved, does
she compensate for the loss of the world. If, therefore, you love my
son, as I take it that you do--do you?"

Winifred's face was covered. She did not answer.

"Tell me in confidence. I am a woman, too, and know--"

A sob escaped from the poor bowed head. Mrs. Carshaw was moved. She had