Lurton think
that if she had done wrong, she ought to confess it? Couldn't she be
forgiven without that? Wouldn't he pray for her unless she confessed it?
He ought not to be so hard on her. Would God be hard on her if she did
not tell it all? Oh! she was so miserable!

Mr. Lurton told her that sometimes people committed sin by refusing to
confess because their confession had something to do with other people.
Was her confession necessary to remove blame from others?

"Oh!" cried the sick woman, "Albert has told you all about it! Oh, dear!
now I shall have more trouble! Why didn't he wait till I'm dead? Isn't it
enough to have Katy drowned and Albert gone to that awful place and this
trouble? Oh! I wish I was dead! But then--maybe God would be hard on me!
Do you think God would be hard on a woman that did wrong if she was told
to do it? And if she was told to do it by her own husband? And if she had
to do it to save her husband from some awful trouble? There, I nearly
told it. Won't that do?"

And she turned her head over and affected to be asleep. Mr. Lurton was
now more eager than ever that the whole truth should come out, since he
began to see how important Mrs. Plausaby's communication might be.
Beneath all his sweetness, as I have said, there was much manly firmness,
and he now drew his chair near to the bedside, and began in a tone full
of solemnity, with that sort of quiet resoluteness that a surgeon has
when he decides to use the knife. He was the more resolute because he
knew that if Plausaby returned before the confession should be made,
there would be no possibility of getting it.

"Mrs. Plausaby," he said, but she affected to be asleep. "Mrs. Plausaby,
suppose a woman, by doing wrong when her husband asks it, brings a great
calamity on the only child she has, locking him in prison and destroying
his good name--"

"Oh, dear, dear! stop! You'll kill me! I knew Albert had told you. Now I
won't say a word about it. If he has told it, there is no use of my
saying anything," and she covered up her face in a stubborn, childish
petulance.

CHAPTER XXXII.

A CONFESSION.

Mr. Lurton wisely left the room. Mrs. Plausaby's fears of death soon
awakened again, and she begged Isa to ask Mr. Lurton to come back. Like
most feeble people, she had a superstitious veneration for ecclesiastical
authority, and now in her weakened condition she had readily got a vague
notion that Lurton held her salvation in his h