irl. I think of things that
I never thought of before--some change, I don't know what, has come over
me. Oh, my heart does hunger so to be good! I do so long to deserve what
Amelius has done for me! You have got my book there--Amelius gave it
to me; we read in it every day. If Christ had been on earth now, is it
wrong to think that Christ would have forgiven me?"

"No, my dear; it's right to think so."

"And, while I live, if I do my best to lead a good life, and if my last
prayer to God is to take me to heaven, shall I be heard?"

"You will be heard, my child, I don't doubt it. But, you see, you have
got the world about you to reckon with--and the world has invented
a religion of its own. There's no use looking for it in this book of
yours. It's a religion with the pride of property at the bottom of it,
and a veneer of benevolent sentiment at the top. It will be very
sorry for you, and very charitable towards you: in short, it will do
everything for you except taking you back again."

She had her answer to that. "Amelius has taken me back again," she said.

"Amelius has taken you back again," Rufus agreed. "But there's one thing
he's forgotten to do; he has forgotten to count the cost. It seems to
be left to me to do that. Look here, my girl! I own I doubted you when I
first came into this room; and I'm sorry for it, and I beg your pardon.
I do believe you're a good girl--I couldn't say why if I was asked, but
I do believe it for all that. I wish there was no more to be said--but
there is more; and neither you nor I must shirk it. Public opinion won't
deal as tenderly with you as I do; public opinion will make the worst
of you, and the worst of Amelius. While you're living here with
him--there's no disguising it--you're innocently in the way of the boy's
prospects in life. I don't know whether you understand me?"

She had turned away from him; she was looking out of the window once
more.

"I understand you," she answered. "On the night when Amelius met with
me, he did wrong to take me away with him. He ought to have left me
where I was."

"Wait a bit! that's as far from my meaning as far can be. There's a
look-out for everybody; and, if you'll trust me, I'll find a look-out
for _you."_

She paid no heed to what he said: her next words showed that she was
pursuing her own train of thought.

"I am in the way of his prospects in life," she resumed. "You mean that
he might be married some day, but for me?"

R