things had followed upon that one great sin,
and how very nearly she herself had been touched by its consequences.
She had been involved in it and had become a part of it. She had felt it
about her for years, in her friendship for Reanda. It had contributed to
the causes of his death, if it had not actually caused it. She, in
helping to bring about his marriage with the daughter of her sinning
kinswoman, had unconsciously made a link in the chain. Her friendship
for the artist no longer looked as innocent as formerly. Gloria had
accused him of loving her, Francesca. Had she not loved him? Whether she
had or not, she had done things which had wounded his innocent young
wife. In a sudden and painful illumination of the past, she saw that she
herself had not been sinless; that she had been selfish, if nothing
worse; that she had craved Reanda's presence and devoted friendship, if
nothing more; that death had taken from her more than a friend. She saw
all at once the vanity of her own belief in her own innocence, and she
accused herself very bitterly of many things which had been quite hidden
from her until then.

She was roused by a footstep behind her, and she started at the sound of
a voice she knew, but which had changed oddly since she had last heard
it. It was stern, deep, and clear still, but the life was gone out of
it. It had an automatic sound.

"I beg your pardon, Princess," said Paul Griggs, stopping close to her
behind the bench. "May I speak to you for a moment?"

She turned her head. As the sun went down, the church grew lighter for a
little while, as it often does. Yet she could hardly see the man's eyes
at all, as she looked into his face. They were all in the shadow and had
no light in them.

"Sit down," she said mechanically.

She could not refuse to speak to him, and, indeed, she would not have
refused to receive him had she been at home when he had called that day.
Socially speaking, according to the standards of those around her, he
had done nothing which she could very severely blame. A woman he had
dearly loved had come to him for protection, and he had not driven her
away. That was the social value of what he had done. The moral view of
it all was individual with herself. Society gave her no right to treat
him rudely because she disapproved of his past life. For the rest, she
had liked him in former times, and she believed that there was much more
good in him than at first appeared.

She was