in silent faith and
confidence.

"Anyway, I know you will be fair to me in your own way," she said.
"There is only one way that I know how to be fair to you. Listen."

And in a shamed voice she forced herself to recite her list of sins;
repeating them as she had confessed them to Kathleen. She told him
everything; her silly and common imprudence with Dysart, which, she
believed, had bordered the danger mark; her ignoble descent to what she
had always held aloof from, meaning demoralisation in regard to betting
and gambling and foolish language; and last, but most shameful, her
secret and perilous temporising with a habit which already was making
self-denial very difficult for her. She did not spare herself; she told
him everything, searching the secret recesses of her heart for some
small sin in hiding, some fault, perhaps, overlooked or forgotten. All
that she held unworthy in her she told this man; and the man, being an
average man, listened, head bowed over her fragrant hair, adoring her,
wretched in heart and soul with the heavy knowledge of all he dare not
tell or forget or cleanse from him, kneeling repentant, in the sanctuary
of her love and confidence.

She told him everything--sins of omission, childish depravities, made
real only by the decalogue. Of indolence, selfishness, unkindness, she
accused herself; strove to count the times when she had yielded to
temptation.

He was reading the first human heart he had ever known--a heart still
strangely untainted, amid a society where innocence was the exception,
doubtful wisdom the rule, and where curiosity was seldom left very long
in doubt.

His hands fell over hers as her voice ceased, but he did not speak.

She waited a little while, then, with a slight nestling movement, turned
and hid her face on his knees.

"With God's help," she whispered, "I will subdue what threatens me. But
I am afraid of it! Oh, Duane, I am afraid."

He managed to steady his voice.

"What is it, darling, that seems to tempt you," he asked; "is it the
taste--the effect?"

"The--effect. If I could only forget it--but I can't help thinking about
it--I suppose just because it's forbidden--For days, sometimes, there is
not the slightest desire; then something stirs it up in me, begins to
annoy me; or the desire comes sometimes when I am excited or very happy,
or very miserable. There seems to be some degraded instinct in me that
seeks for it whenever my emotions are aroused....