said, "it is not too late."

There was a desperate bitterness in her face. "Yes, yes, it is. You do
not understand. You--it's all right for you, you are blameless; but
I----"

"You too are blameless, dear. We have both been miserably duped. Never
mind, Berna, we will forget all. I love you, Oh how much I never can
tell you, girl! Come, let us forget and go away and be happy."

It seemed as if my every word was like a stab to her. The sweet face was
tragically wretched.

"Oh no," she answered, "it can never be. You think it can, but it can't.
You could not forget. I could not forget. We would both be thinking;
always, always torturing each other. To you the thought would be like a
knife thrust, and the more you loved me the deeper would pierce its
blade. And I, too, can you not realise how fearfully I would look at
you, always knowing you were thinking of THAT, and what an agony it
would be to me to watch your agony? Our home would be a haunted one, a
place of ghosts. Never again can there be joy between you and me. It's
too late, too late!"

She was choking back the sobs now, but still the tears did not come.

"Berna," I said gently, "I think I could forget. Please give me a chance
to prove it. Other men have forgotten. I know it was not your fault. I
know that spiritually you are the same pure girl you were before. You
are an angel, dear; my angel."

"No, I was not to blame. When you failed to come I grew desperate. When
I wrote you and still you failed to come I was almost distracted. Night
and day he was persecuting me. The others gave me no peace. If ever a
poor girl was hounded to dishonour I was. Yet I had made up my mind to
die rather than yield. Oh, it's too horrible."

She shuddered.

"Never mind, dear, don't tell me about it."

"When I awoke to life sick, sick for many days, I wanted to die, but I
could not. There seemed to be nothing for it but to stay on there. I was
so weak, so ill, so indifferent to everything that it did not seem to
matter. That was where I made my mistake. I should have killed myself.
Oh, there's something in us all that makes us cling to life in spite of
shame! But I would never let him come near me again. You believe me,
don't you?"

"I believe you."

"And though, when he went away, I've gone into this life, there's never
been any one else. I've danced with them, laughed with them, but that's
all. You believe me?"

"Yes, dear."

"Thank God for that! And now we must