Anne saw that in
her face there was a look as if of horror which struggled with a grief, a
woe, too monstrous to be borne.

"Lie down, Anne," she said. "Be not afraid--'tis only I," bitterly--"who
need fear?"

Anne cowered among the pillows and hid her face in her thin hands. She
knew so well that this was true.

"I never thought the time would come," her sister said, "when I should
seek you for protection. A thing has come upon me--perhaps I shall go
mad--to-night, alone in my room, I wanted to sit near a woman--'twas not
like me, was it?"

Mistress Anne crept near the bed's edge, and stretching forth a hand,
touched hers, which were as cold as marble.

"Stay with me, sister," she prayed. "Sister, do not go! What--what can
I say?"

"Naught," was the steady answer. "There is naught to be said. You were
always a woman--I was never one--till now."

She rose up from her chair and threw up her arms, pacing to and fro.

"I am a desperate creature," she cried. "Why was I born?"

She walked the room almost like a thing mad and caged.

"Why was I thrown into the world?" striking her breast. "Why was I made
so--and not one to watch or care through those mad years? To be given a
body like this--and tossed to the wolves."

She turned to Anne, her arms outstretched, and so stood white and strange
and beauteous as a statue, with drops like great pearls running down her
lovely cheeks, and she caught her breath sobbingly, like a child.

"I was thrown to them," she wailed piteously, "and they harried me--and
left the marks of their great teeth--and of the scars I cannot rid
myself--and since it was my fate--pronounced from my first hour--why was
not this," clutching her breast, "left hard as 'twas at first? Not a
woman's--not a woman's, but a she-cub's. Ah! 'twas not just--not just
that it should be so!"

Anne slipped from her bed and ran to her, falling upon her knees and
clinging to her, weeping bitterly.

"Poor heart!" she cried. "Poor, dearest heart!"

Her touch and words seemed to recall Clorinda to herself. She started as
if wakened from a dream, and drew her form up rigid.

"I have gone mad," she said. "What is it I do?" She passed her hand
across her brow and laughed a little wild laugh. "Yes," she said; "this
it is to be a woman--to turn weak and run to other women--and weep and
talk. Yes, by these signs I _am_ a woman!" She stood with her clenched
hands pressed against her breast. "In a