ng of a voluntary confession, after that?"

"You mistake me, madam. I was speaking of the confession of my
motives--the motives which, in my dreadful position, forced me to take
the money, or to sacrifice the future of my daughter's life. I declare
that I have concealed nothing from you. As you are a Christian woman,
don't be hard on me!"

Mrs. Wagner drew back, and eyed her with an expression of contemptuous
surprise.

"Hard on you?" she repeated. "Do you know what you are saying? Have you
forgotten already how I have consented to degrade myself? Must I once
more remind you of _my_ position? I am bound to tell Mr. Keller that his
money and mine has been stolen; I am bound to tell him that he has taken
into his house, and has respected and trusted, a thief. There is my plain
duty--and I have consented to trifle with it. Are you lost to all sense
of decency? Have you no idea of the shame that an honest woman must feel,
when she knows that her unworthy silence makes her--for the time at
least--the accomplice of your crime? Do you think it was for your
sake--not to be hard on You--that I have consented to this intolerable
sacrifice? In the instant when I discovered you I would have sent for Mr.
Keller, but for the sweet girl whose misfortune it is to be your child.
Once for all, have you anything to say which it is absolutely necessary
that I should hear? Have you, or have you not, complied with the
conditions on which I consented--God help me!--to be what I am?"

Her voice faltered. She turned away proudly to compose herself. The look
that flashed out at her from the widow's eyes, the suppressed fury
struggling to force its way in words through the widow's lips, escaped
her notice. It was the first, and last, warning of what was to come--and
she missed it.

"I wished to speak to you of your conditions," Madame Fontaine resumed,
after a pause. "Your conditions are impossibilities. I entreat you, in
Minna's interests--oh! not in mine!--to modify them."

The tone in which those words fell from her lips was so unnaturally
quiet, that Mrs. Wagner suddenly turned again with a start, and faced
her.

"What do you mean by impossibilities? Explain yourself."

"You are an honest woman, and I am a thief," Madame Fontaine answered,
with the same ominous composure. "How can explanations pass between you
and me? Have I not spoken plainly enough already? In my position, I say
again, your conditions are impossibilities--especiall