od was human,
oh, for so many years!--I loved Louis Champney."

Again there was a long inhalation and exhalation. It seemed as if each
admission, which she forced herself to make, loosened more and more the
tension of the long-racked nerves; as a result the muscles of the throat
relaxed, the articulation grew distinct, the voice stronger.

"--And he loved me--better than life itself. I was so young when it
began--only sixteen. My husband's father took me into his home then to
bring up; I was an orphan. And Louis Champney loved me then and
always--but Almeda Googe, my husband's sister, loved him too--in her
way. Her own father could do nothing with her awful will--it crushed
everybody that came in contact with it--that opposed it; it crushed
me--and in the end, Louis."

She took a little of the lemonade to moisten her lips and went on:

"She was twelve years older than he. She took him when he was in
college; worked on him, lied to him about me; told him I loved her
brother; worked backwards, forwards, underhanded--any way to influence
him against me and get her hold upon him. He went to Europe; she
followed; wrote lying letters to her brother--said she was engaged to be
married to Louis before her return; told Louis I was going to marry her
brother, Warren Googe--in the end she had her way, and always has had
it, and will have it. I married Warren Googe; she was forty when she
married Louis at twenty-eight."

She paused, straightened herself. Something like animation came into her
face.

"It does me good to speak--at last. I've never spoken in all these
years--and I can tell you. My child was born seven months after my
husband's death. Louis Champney came to see me then--up here, in this
room; it was the first time we had dared to see each other alone--but
the baby lay beside me; _that kept us_. He said but little; but he took
up the child and looked at him; then he turned to me. 'This should have
been our son, Aurora,' he said, and I--oh, what will you think of me!"
She dropped her head into her hands.

"I knew in my heart that during all those months I was carrying Warren
Googe's child, I had only one thought: 'Oh, if it were only Louis' and
mine!' And because I was a widow, I felt free to dwell upon that one
thought night and day. Louis' face was always before me. I came in
thought to look upon him as the true father of my boy--not that other
for whom I had had no love. And I took great comfort in that
thoug