wonder at myself." The girl paused a
second, looked down, as if questioningly, at the carpet, and then,
lifting her eyes again, went on in a dragging, half bewildered voice:
"When I do _not_, I actually believe it is because we are both--women
together. Before, it was different."

The look which Walderhurst had compared to "that of some nice animal in
the Zoo" came into Emily's eyes as two honest drops fell from them.

"Would _you_ hurt me?" she faltered. "Could _you_ let other people hurt
me?"

Hester leaned further forward in her chair, widening upon her such
hysterically insistent, terrible young eyes as made her shudder.

"Don't you _see_?" she cried. "_Can't_ you see? But for _you_ my son
would be what Walderhurst is--my son, not yours."

"I understand," said Emily. "I understand."

"Listen!" Mrs. Osborn went on through her teeth. "Even for that, there
are things I haven't the nerve to stand. I have thought I could stand
them. But I can't. It does not matter why. I am going to tell you the
truth. You represent too much. You have been too great a temptation.
Nobody meant anything or planned anything at first. It all came by
degrees. To see you smiling and enjoying everything and adoring that
stilted prig of a Walderhurst put ideas into people's heads, and they
grew because every chance fed them. If Walderhurst would come home--"

Lady Walderhurst put out her hand to a letter which lay on the table.

"I heard from him this morning," she said. "And he has been sent to the
Hills because he has a little fever. He must be quiet. So you see he
_cannot_ come yet."

She was shivering, though she was determined to keep still.

"What was in the milk?" she asked.

"In the milk there was the Indian root Ameerah gave the village girl.
Last night as I sat under a tree in the dark I heard it talked over.
Only a few native women know it."

There was a singular gravity in the words poor Lady Walderhurst spoke in
reply.

"That," she said, "would have been the cruelest thing of all."

Mrs. Osborn got up and came close to her.

"If you had gone out on Faustine," she said, "you would have met with
_an accident_. It might or might not have killed you. But it would have
been an accident. If you had gone downstairs before Jane Cupp saw the
bit of broken balustrade you might have been killed--by accident again.
If you had leaned upon the rail of the bridge you would have been
drowned, and no human being could have been acc