"Will you tell me some time?" she asked insistently as the woman came nearer. She might never have so good an opportunity again. "Mr. Harcourt's waitin' fur you, Miss Margaret." Richard De Jarnette's face hardened. "There is nothing to tell," he said. * * * * * She took the letter and read it hastily. "It is from Mrs. Pennybacker," she said, reading aloud with an awed look on her face, "'Rosalie is worse. I think this is the end. She wants to see you and Mr. De Jarnette together and will not be denied. Come at once.'" CHAPTER XLII THE CONFESSIONAL "Will you go with Mr. Harcourt and myself?" she asked. "There will be plenty of room, I think." "No. I will go by train and meet you there." When he reached the house on Massachusetts Avenue she had not yet come. Mrs. Pennybacker took him into the parlor. "I am glad to have the opportunity to tell you something of the girl's history before Margaret comes," she said. "The poor child has something on her mind that she feels she must tell you.... No, I don't know what it is." When she had finished that pitiful story of woman's trust and man's perfidy, his face was haggard. He could guess the name. They both thought that her talk would be a plea for the child. Margaret came at last and they were taken to the sick girl's room. "She is very weak," whispered Mrs. Pennybacker at the door, "but perfectly clear in mind. For the last few days she has been in great mental distress about something. It is only since I promised her to send for you both that she has been quiet. Let her do the talking in her own way." At the bedside of the girl Mr. De Jarnette felt a great wave of compassion sweep over him. She was so young. "Rosalie, this is Mr. De Jarnette." He held out his hand but she would not take it, and he passed to a seat at the foot of the bed where he could see her without being himself under the eyes of any of them. When Margaret bent over her, smoothing her hair, patting the worn cheek, and smiling into her eyes, the mental anguish of the last two days of which Mrs. Pennybacker had spoken, seemed to break out afresh. "Oh, madam, do not take my hand. It is stained with blood.... If--when you have heard all--" "Why, Rosalie, my poor girl," Margaret said soothingly, "you have done nothing that you should plead to me for forgiveness. Your greatest sin has been to yourself and your child--and even then you have been more sinned against than sinning." "Oh, madam, you do not know. It is this that I have brought you to this room to hear." Margaret had drawn a chair to the bedside, thinking that the girl could tell her story, whatever it was, better to her than to a stranger. "What is it, Rosalie? Tell me then if it will ease your mind in the least. What have you ever done to me!"