forward, even as Suzanne jumped up, a sickening rage in her heart, a
sense of her personal condition strong in her mind, a sense of something
terrible and climacteric in the very air, but she was still too ill to
risk a great demonstration or to declare herself fully. It seemed now
once more the whole world had fallen about her ears, for because of her
plans and in spite of all her suspicions, she had not been ready to
believe that Eugene would really trespass again. She had come to
surprise him, if possible, but she had not actually expected to, had
hoped not to. Here was this beautiful girl, the victim of his wiles, and
here was she involved by her own planning, while Eugene, shame-faced,
she supposed, stood by ready to have this ridiculous liaison nipped in
the bud. She did not propose to expose herself to Suzanne if she could
help it, but sorrow for herself, shame for him, pity for Suzanne in a
way, the desire to preserve the shell of appearances, which was now,
after this, so utterly empty for her though so important for the child,
caused her to swell with her old-time rage, and yet to hold it in check.
Six years before she would have raged to his face, but time had softened
her in this respect. She did not see the value of brutal words.

"Suzanne," she said, standing erect in the filtered gloom of the room
which was still irradiated by the light of the moon in the west, "how
could you! I thought so much better of you."

Her face, thinned by her long illness and her brooding over her present
condition, was still beautiful in a spiritual way. She wore a pale
yellow and white flowered dressing gown of filmy, lacy texture, and her
long hair, done in braids by the nurse, was hanging down her back like
the Gretchen she was to him years before. Her hands were thin and pale,
but artistic, and her face drawn in all the wearisome agony of a mater
dolorosa.

"Why, why," exclaimed Suzanne, terribly shaken out of her natural fine
poise for the moment but not forgetful of the dominating thought in her
mind, "I love him; that's why, Mrs. Witla."

"Oh, no, you don't! you only think you love him, as so many women have
before you, Suzanne," said Angela frozenly, the thought of the coming
child always with her. If she had only told him before! "Oh, shame, in
my house, and you a young, supposedly innocent girl! What do you suppose
your mother would think if I should call her up and tell her now? Or
your brother? You knew he was a