girl she is?"

"I'm afraid, Walter, she is what you have made her."

"And so you want to reclaim her?"

"I do, indeed."

"You couldn't reclaim her."

"She is very young, isn't she?"

"N--no--She's eight--and--twenty."

"I thought she was a young girl. But, if she's as old as that--and bad--"

"Bad? Bad?"

He rose and looked down on her in anger.

"She's good. You don't know what you're talking about. She isn't a lady,
but she's as gentle and as modest as you are yourself. She's sweet, and
kind, and loving. She's the most unworldly and unselfish creature I ever
met. All the time I've known her she never did a selfish thing. She was
absolutely devoted. She'd have stripped herself bare of everything she
possessed if it would have done me any good. Why, the very thing you
blame the poor little soul for, only proves that she hadn't a thought
for herself. It would have been better for her if she'd had. And you talk
of 'reclaiming' a woman like that! You want to turn your preposterous
committee on to her, to decide whether she's good enough to be taken and
shut up in one of your beastly institutions! No. On the whole, I think
she'll be better off if you leave her to me."

"Say at once that you think I'd better leave you to her, since you think
her perfect."

"She _was_ perfect to me. She gave me all she had to give. She couldn't
very well do more."

"You mean she helped you to sin. So, of course, you condone her sin."

"I should be an utter brute if I didn't stand up for her, shouldn't I?"

"Yes." She admitted it. "I suppose you feel that you must defend her. Can
you defend yourself, Walter?"

He was silent.

"I'm not going to remind you of your sin against your wife. _That_ you
would think nothing of. What have you to say for your sin against her?"

"My sin against her was not caring for her. _You_ needn't call me to
account for it."

"I am to believe that you did not care for her?"

"I never cared for her. I took everything from her and gave her nothing,
and I left her like a brute."

"Why did you go to her if you did not care for her?"

"I went to her because I cared for my wife. And I left her for the same
reason. And she knew it."

"Do you really expect me to believe that you left me for another woman,
because you cared for me?"

"For no earthly reason except that."

"You deceived me--you lived in deliberate sin with this woman for three
years--and now you come back to me, because, I supp