got to bear it. I don't know what's
to come of it all. But she's got to bear her share of it." She rose
and went toward the door.

Penelope ran after her in a sort of terror. "You're not going to tell
Irene?" she gasped, seizing her mother by either shoulder.

"Yes, I am," said Mrs. Lapham. "If she's a woman grown, she can bear a
woman's burden."

"I can't let you tell Irene," said the girl, letting fall her face on
her mother's neck. "Not Irene," she moaned. "I'm afraid to let you.
How can I ever look at her again?"

"Why, you haven't done anything, Pen," said her mother soothingly.

"I wanted to! Yes, I must have done something. How could I help it? I
did care for him from the first, and I must have tried to make him like
me. Do you think I did? No, no! You mustn't tell Irene! Not--
not--yet! Mother! Yes! I did try to get him from her!" she cried,
lifting her head, and suddenly looking her mother in the face with
those large dim eyes of hers. "What do you think? Even last night! It
was the first time I ever had him all to myself, for myself, and I know
now that I tried to make him think that I was pretty and--funny. And I
didn't try to make him think of her. I knew that I pleased him, and I
tried to please him more. Perhaps I could have kept him from saying
that he cared for me; but when I saw he did--I must have seen it--I
couldn't. I had never had him to myself, and for myself before. I
needn't have seen him at all, but I wanted to see him; and when I was
sitting there alone with him, how do I know what I did to let him feel
that I cared for him? Now, will you tell Irene? I never thought he did
care for me, and never expected him to. But I liked him. Yes--I did
like him! Tell her that! Or else I will."

"If it was to tell her he was dead," began Mrs. Lapham absently.

"How easy it would be!" cried the girl in self-mockery. "But he's
worse than dead to her; and so am I. I've turned it over a million
ways, mother; I've looked at it in every light you can put it in, and I
can't make anything but misery out of it. You can see the misery at
the first glance, and you can't see more or less if you spend your life
looking at it." She laughed again, as if the hopelessness of the thing
amused her. Then she flew to the extreme of self-assertion. "Well, I
HAVE a right to him, and he has a right to me. If he's never done
anything to make her think he cared for her,--and I know he hasn't;
it's all been