r and whiter
still every instant)--"look at that woman, I say--corrupt long before
she was your age--hypocrite for years! If ever you, or any child of
mine, cared for her, shake her off from you, as St Paul shook off
the viper--even into the fire." He stopped for very want of breath.
Jemima, all flushed and panting, went up and stood side by side with
wan Ruth. She took the cold, dead hand which hung next to her in her
warm convulsive grasp, and holding it so tight that it was blue and
discoloured for days, she spoke out beyond all power of restraint
from her father.

"Father, I will speak. I will not keep silence. I will bear witness
to Ruth. I have hated her--so keenly, may God forgive me! but you
may know, from that, that my witness is true. I have hated her,
and my hatred was only quenched into contempt--not contempt now,
dear Ruth--dear Ruth"--(this was spoken with infinite softness and
tenderness, and in spite of her father's fierce eyes and passionate
gesture)--"I heard what you have learnt now, father, weeks and weeks
ago--a year it may be, all time of late has been so long; and I
shuddered up from her and from her sin; and I might have spoken of
it, and told it there and then, if I had not been afraid that it was
from no good motive I should act in so doing, but to gain a way to
the desire of my own jealous heart. Yes, father, to show you what a
witness I am for Ruth, I will own that I was stabbed to the heart
with jealousy; some one--some one cared for Ruth that--oh, father!
spare me saying all." Her face was double-dyed with crimson blushes,
and she paused for one moment--no more.

"I watched her, and I watched her with my wild-beast eyes. If I had
seen one paltering with duty--if I had witnessed one flickering
shadow of untruth in word or action--if, more than all things, my
woman's instinct had ever been conscious of the faintest speck of
impurity in thought, or word, or look, my old hate would have flamed
out with the flame of hell! my contempt would have turned to loathing
disgust, instead of my being full of pity, and the stirrings of
new-awakened love, and most true respect. Father, I have borne my
witness!"

"And I will tell you how much your witness is worth," said her
father, beginning low, that his pent-up wrath might have room to
swell out. "It only convinces me more and more how deep is the
corruption this wanton has spread in my family. She has come amongst
us with her innocent seeming, and