he gave in it. But Miss Shirley told him she was ready to take her full
share of the blame, and, if anything came of it, she authorized him to
put the whole blame on her."

Verrian made a pause which his mother took for invitation or permission
to ask, "And was he satisfied with that?"

"I don't know. I wasn't, and it's only just to Miss Shirley to say that
she wasn't, either. She didn't try to justify it to me; she merely said
she was so frightened that she couldn't have done anything. She may have
realized more than the Brown girl what they had done."

"The postmaster, did he regard it as anything worse than foolishness?"

"I don't believe he did. At any rate, he was satisfied with what his
daughter had done in owning up."

"Well, I always liked that girl's letter. And did they show him your
letter?"

"It seems that they did."

"And what did he say about that?"

"I suppose, what I deserved. Miss Shirley wouldn't say, explicitly.
He wanted to answer it, but they wouldn't let him. I don't know but I
should feel better if he had. I haven't been proud of that letter
of mine as time has gone on, mother; I think I behaved very
narrow-mindedly, very personally in it."

"You behaved justly."

"Justly? I thought you had your doubts of that. At any rate, I had when
it came to hearing the girl accusing herself as if she had been guilty
of some monstrous wickedness, and I realized that I had made her feel
so."

"She threw herself on your pity!"

"No, she didn't, mother. Don't make it impossible for me to tell you
just how it was."

"I won't. Go on."

"I don't say she was manly about it; that couldn't be, but she was
certainly not throwing herself on my pity, unless--unless--"

"What?"

"Unless you call it so for her to say that she wanted to own up to me,
because she could have no rest till she had done so; she couldn't put it
behind her till she had acknowledged it; she couldn't work; she couldn't
get well."

He saw his mother trying to consider it fairly, and in response he
renewed his own resolution not to make himself the girl's advocate with
her, but to continue the dispassionate historian of the case. At the
same time his memory was filled with the vision of how she had done and
said the things he was telling, with what pathos, with what grace, with
what beauty in her appeal. He saw the tears that came into her eyes
at times and that she indignantly repressed as she hurried on in the
confession which