ed;
shocking, if it is true--is it true?"

He looked at Julia, and she answered, "Yes."

She was sorry, very sorry, but more on his account than her own; she
could see how heinous he thought it, how she had fallen in his esteem,
and she was sorry for it. But at the same time she knew her conduct
really had been no more than indiscreet; and she did not repent; she
regretted nothing but being found out, and that not so much as she
ought now that the joy of battle was upon her. As for the women, they
suspected far worse than Mijnheer believed; but even if they had not,
if they had believed no more than the truth, that would have been
enough for condemnation; her offence--the real one--was past
forgiveness; she must go. She received the sentence meekly; she knew
she deserved no less from these kind if narrow-minded people. Denah
smiled triumphantly; Julia felt she deserved that too; moreover,
Denah's nose was so pink and her face so swelled with tears, that the
smile was more amusing than exasperating.

"I am sorry," she said; "I am sorry you should all have to think so
ill of me, and that I should deserve it. You have been very kind to me
while I have been here, and made my service easy; I am ashamed to have
deceived you and behaved in such a way as you must condemn."

Unfortunately Vrouw Snieder snorted here; she did not believe in these
protestations and she said so, inducing Vrouw Van Heigen to do the
same. Mijnheer looked doubtfully at Julia for a moment, then he came
to the conclusion that if she was not too abandoned a person to be
really repentant, it would be as well to take advantage of her
professed state of mind and drive home some moral lessons. Accordingly
he and the two elder ladies drove them home, with the result that
Julia's regret dwindled to nothing.

"Mijnheer," she said at last, quietly yet effectually breaking in upon
his words; "Mijnheer, you are a very good man, Mevrouw is a virtuous
woman, and Vrouw Snieder also, all of you. I have often admired your
goodness; when you were least conscious of it it preached to me,
making me ashamed of my wickedness. But now that you, in your
goodness, have taken to preaching to me yourselves, I am no longer
ashamed, for it is clear that your goodness dares to do a thing that
no man's wickedness would; it turns the foolish and indiscreet into
sinners and sinners into devils; it makes the way of wrong-doing very
easy. You are so good," she went on, putting asid