ome around, the slim, smallish figure
sitting in a corner, looking very much alone, and clad in dark attire,
which seemed to have been washed a trifle too often, was Delphine
Carraze on her second visit. And this, he was confident, was over and
above an attendance in the confessional, where he was sure he had
recognized her voice.

She rose bashfully and gave her hand, then looked to the floor, and
began a faltering speech, with a swallowing motion in the throat, smiled
weakly and commenced again, speaking, as before, in a gentle, low note,
frequently lifting up and casting down her eyes, while shadows of
anxiety and smiles of apology chased each other rapidly across her face.
She was trying to ask his advice.

"Sit down," said he; and when they had taken seats she resumed, with
downcast eyes:

"You know,--probably I should have said this in the confessional, but--

"No matter, Madame Delphine; I understand; you did not want an oracle,
perhaps; you want a friend."

She lifted her eyes, shining with tears, and dropped them again.

"I"--she ceased. "I have done a"--she dropped her head and shook it
despondingly--"a cruel thing." The tears rolled from her eyes as she
turned away her face.

Pere Jerome remained silent, and presently she turned again, with the
evident intention of speaking at length.

"It began nineteen years ago--by"--her eyes, which she had lifted, fell
lower than ever, her brow and neck were suffused with blushes, and she
murmured--"I fell in love."

She said no more, and by and by Pere Jerome replied:

"Well, Madame Delphine, to love is the right of every soul. I believe in
love. If your love was pure and lawful I am sure your angel guardian
smiled upon you; and if it was not, I cannot say you have nothing to
answer for, and yet I think God may have said: 'She is a quadroone; all
the rights of her womanhood trampled in the mire, sin made easy to
her--almost compulsory,--charge it to account of whom it may concern."

"No, no!" said Madame Delphine, looking up quickly, "some of it might
fall upon--" Her eyes fell, and she commenced biting her lips and
nervously pinching little folds in her skirt. "He was good--as good as
the law would let him be--better, indeed, for he left me property, which
really the strict law does not allow. He loved our little daughter very
much. He wrote to his mother and sisters, owning all his error and
asking them to take the child and bring her up. I sent her to the