Mrs. Bennet entered the room.

It was more than twenty years since the sisters had met, and they clasped
each other silently and wept for a long time.

"Martha!"

"Lucia!"

It was all they said; and wept again quietly.

Aunt Martha was dressed in sober black. Her face was very comely; for the
hardness that came with a morbid and mistaken zeal was mellowed, and the
sadness of experience softened it.

"I have lived not far from you, Lucia, all these long years."

"Martha! and you did not come to me?"

"I did not dare. Listen, Lucia. If a woman who had always gratified her
love of admiration, and gloried in the power of gratifying it--who
conquered men and loved to conquer them--who was a woman of ungoverned
will and indomitable pride, should encounter--as how often they do?--a
man who utterly conquered her, and betrayed her through the very weakness
that springs from pride, do you not see that such a woman would go near
to insanity--as I have been--believing that I had committed the
unpardonable sin, and that no punishment could be painful enough?"

Mrs. Bennet looked alarmed.

"No, no; there is no reason," said her sister, observing it.

"The man came. I could not resist him. There was a form of marriage. I
believed that it was I who had conquered. He left me; my child was born.
I appealed to Lawrence Newt, our old friend and playmate. He promised me
faithful secrecy, and through him the child was sent where Gabriel was at
school. Then I withdrew from both. I thought it was the will of God. I
felt myself commanded to a living death--dead to every friend and
kinsman--dead to every thing but my degradation and its punishment;
and yet consciously close to you, near to all old haunts and familiar
faces--lost to them all--lost to my child--" Her voice faltered, and the
tears gushed from her eyes. "But I persevered. The old passionate pride
was changed to a kind of religious frenzy. Lawrence Newt went and came to
and from India. I was utterly lost to the world. I knew that my child
would never know me, for Lawrence had promised that he would not betray
me; and when I disappeared from his view, Lawrence gradually came to
consider me dead. Then Amy discovered me among the poor souls she
visited, and through Amy Lawrence Newt; and by them I have been led out
of the valley of the shadow of death, and see the blessed light of love
once more."

She bowed her head in uncontrollable emotion.

"And your son?" said her