e changed to one of
authority, and her eyes fixed themselves on Nancy's, regarding her with
the mild but severe rebuke of a spiritual superior. 'Having acknowledged
my wrong-doing, I must remind you of your own. Let me ask you first of
all--have you any religious life?'

Nancy's eyes had turned away, but at these words they flashed sternly
upon the speaker.

'I shall let you ask no such question.'

'I expected it,' Jessica sighed patiently. 'You are still in the
darkness, out of which _I_ have been saved.'

'If you have nothing more to say than this, I must refuse to talk any
longer.'

'There is a word I must speak,' pursued Jessica. 'If you will not heed
it now, it will remain in your memory, and bear fruit at the appointed
time. I alone know of the sin which poisons your soul, and the
experiences through which I have passed justify me in calling you to
repentance.'

Nancy raised her hand.

'Stop! That is quite enough. Perhaps you are behaving conscientiously;
I will try to believe it. But not another word, or I shall speak as I
don't wish to.'

'It is enough. You know very well what I refer to. Don't imagine that
because you are now a married woman--'

Nancy stepped to the door, and threw it open.

'Leave the house,' she said, in an unsteady tone. 'You said you were
unwelcome, and it was true. Take yourself out of my sight!'

Jessica put her head back, murmured some inaudible words, and with a
smile of rancorous compassion went forth into the rain.

On recovering from the excitement of this scene, Nancy regretted her
severity; the poor girl in the hideous bonnet had fallen very low,
and her state of mind called for forbearance. The treachery for
which Jessica sought pardon was easy to forgive; not so, however, the
impertinent rebuke, which struck at a weak place in Nancy's conscience.
Just when the course of time and favour of circumstances seemed to
have completely healed that old wound, Jessica, with her crazy malice
grotesquely disguised, came to revive the half-forgotten pangs, the
shame and the doubt that had seemed to be things gone by. It would have
become her, Nancy felt, to treat her hapless friend of years ago in a
spirit of gentle tolerance; that she could not do so proved her--and
she recognised the fact--still immature, still a backward pupil in the
school of life.--'And in the Jubilee year I thought myself a decidedly
accomplished person!'

Never mind. Her husband would come this evenin