he high and most unholy sacrifice. "God
in his mercy has let me see it in time, but his ways are strange that he
has let me see it in my daughter. It's myself he has let me see--myself
as I was for years. But she's worse--she IS, I assure you; she's worse
than I intended or dreamed." Her hands were clasped tightly together in
her lap; her low voice quavered and her breath came short; she looked up
at the southern stars as if THEY would understand.

"Have you ever spoken to her as you speak to me?" I finally asked. "Have
you ever put before her this terrible arraignment?"

"Put it before her? How can I put it before her when all she would have
to say would be: 'You, YOU, you base one, who made me--?'"

"Then why do you want to play her a trick?"

"I'm not bound to tell you, and you wouldn't see my point if I did. I
should play that boy a far worse one if I were to stay my hand."

Oh I had my view of this. "If he loves her he won't believe a word you
say."

"Very possibly, but I shall have done my duty."

"And shall you say to him," I asked, "simply what you've said to me?"

"Never mind what I shall say to him. It will be something that will
perhaps helpfully affect him. Only," she added with her proud decision,
"I must lose no time."

"If you're so bent on gaining time," I said, "why did you let her go out
in the boat with him?"

"Let her? how could I prevent it?"

"But she asked your permission."

"Ah that," she cried, "is all a part of all the comedy!"

It fairly hushed me to silence, and for a moment more she said nothing.
"Then she doesn't know you hate her?" I resumed.

"I don't know what she knows. She has depths and depths, and all of them
bad. Besides, I don't hate her in the least; I just pity her for what
I've made of her. But I pity still more the man who may find himself
married to her."

"There's not much danger of there being any such person," I wailed, "at
the rate you go on."

"I beg your pardon--there's a perfect possibility," said my companion.
"She'll marry--she'll marry 'well.' She'll marry a title as well as a
fortune.

"It's a pity my nephew hasn't a title," I attempted the grimace of
suggesting.

She seemed to wonder. "I see you think I want that, and that I'm acting
a part. God forgive you! Your suspicion's perfectly natural. How can any
one TELL," asked Louisa Pallant--"with people like us?"

Her utterance of these words brought tears to my eyes. I laid my hand
on her arm