down frightenedly.

"No! No! You must not do that! You must not do that!" she cried,
terror-stricken.

"Ye just told me yer own mother couldn't stop ye?" said Peg.

"My mother mustn't know. She mustn't know. Let me go. He is
waiting--and it is past the time--"

"Let him wait!" replied Peg firmly. "He gave his name an' life to a
woman an' it's yer duty to protect her an' the child she brought him."

"I'd kill myself first!" answered Ethel through her clenched teeth.

"No, ye won't. Ye won't kill yerself at all. Ye might have if ye'd gone
with him. Why that's the kind of man that tires of ye in an hour and
laves ye to sorrow alone. Doesn't he want to lave the woman now that he
swore to cherish at the altar of God? What do ye suppose he'd do to one
he took no oath with at all? Now have some sense about it. I know him
and his kind very well. Especially HIM. An' sure it's no compliment
he's payin' ye ayther. Faith, he'd ha' made love to ME if I'd LET him."

"What? To YOU?" cried Ethel in astonishment.

"Yes, to ME. Here in this room to-day. If ye hadn't come in when ye
did, I'd ha' taught him a lesson he'd ha' carried to his grave, so I
would!"

"He tried to make love to you?" repeated Ethel incredulously, though a
chill came at her heart as she half realised the truth of Peg's
accusation.

"Ever since I've been in this house," replied Peg. "An' to-day he comes
toward me with his arms stretched out. 'Kiss an' be friends!' sez
he--an' in YOU walked."

"Is that true?" asked Ethel.

"On me poor mother's memory it is, Ethel!" replied Peg.

Ethel sank down into a chair and covered her eyes.

"The wretch!" she wailed, "the wretch!"

"That's what he is," said Peg. "An' ye'd give yer life into his kapin'
to blacken so that no dacent man or woman would ever look at ye or
spake to ye again."

"No! That is over! That is over!"

All the self-abasement of consenting to, or even considering going
with, such a creature as Brent now came uppermost. She was disgusted
through and through to her soul. Suddenly she broke down and tears for
the first time within her remembrance came to her. She sobbed and
sobbed as she had not done since she was a child.

"I hate myself," she cried between her sobs. "Oh, how I hate myself"

Peg was all pity in a moment. She took the little travelling bag away
from Ethel and put it on the table. Then with her own hands she
staunched Ethel's tears and tried to quiet her.

"Ethel acushla!