t, but as certainly not to be awed or brow-beaten.
Standing in the glare of discovered misconduct, under the scourge of her
shame, the poor girl had grasped some secret strength which made her
invincible.

"But I think, miss," she answered, "Mr. Frank must have known you was
coming." And this Miss Bracy could not deny. She had never told a lie
in her life.

"It is very likely--no, it is certain--that he guessed," she admitted.

"And if so, it comes to the same thing," Bassett persisted, with a shade
of weariness in her voice.

"You ungrateful girl! You ungrateful and quite extraordinary girl!
First you inveigle that poor boy at the very outset of his career, and
then when upon a supposed point of honour he offers to marry you--"

"A 'supposed' point, miss? Do you say 'supposed'?"

"Not one in a thousand would offer such a redemption. And even he
cannot know what it will mean to his life--what it will cost him."

"I shall tell him, miss," said Bassett quietly.

"And his parents--what do you suppose they would say, were they alive?
His poor mother, for instance?"

Bassett dismissed this point silently. To Miss Bracy the queerest thing
about the girl was the quiet practical manner she had put on so
suddenly.

"You said, miss, that Mr. Frank wants to make amends on a 'supposed'
point of honour. Don't you think it a real one?"

Miss Bracy's somewhat high cheekbones showed two red spots. "Because he
offers it, it doesn't follow that you ought to accept. And that's the
whole point," she wound up viciously.

Bassett sighed that she could not get her question answered.
"You will excuse me, miss, but I never 'inveigled' him, as you say.
That I deny; and if you ask Mr. Frank he will bear me out. Not that
it's any use trying to make you believe," she added, with a drop back to
her old level tone as she saw the other's eyebrows go up. It was indeed
hopeless, Miss Bracy being one of those women who take it for granted
that a man has been inveigled as soon as his love-affairs run counter to
their own wishes or taste; and who thereby reveal an estimate of man for
which in the end they are pretty sure to pay heavily. All her answer
now was a frankly incredulous stare.

"You won't believe me, miss. It's not your fault, I know; you _can't_
believe me. But I loved Mr. Frank."

Miss Bracy made a funny little sound high up in her Crusader nose.
That the passions of gentlemen were often ill-regulated she knew; i