“You do not draw away from me—you do not regard me as a pariah,” Bessie continued. “If I were to go to my mother now, and tell her what I am about to tell you, she would order me out of the house, and address me for ever after with the doorchain up. Do you understand me clearly, Heather Dudley?” she said, almost impatiently. “I am not a married woman, and yet I am a mother! Shall I fetch your shawl and bonnet, and send for a cab, and bid you farewell for ever? Don’t you hate to touch me? Is the room not oppressive in which I breathe the same air with you?” and, as she spoke, Bessie rose excitedly, and would have moved farther away but that Heather caught and chid her for her want of faith. “I am your friend, love,” she said in the low tone which had such a virtue of healing and leisure in it—“not your judge. We are woman to woman now, Bessie, tell me what you will.” Then Bessie, flinging herself on her knees, buried her face in the folds of Heather’s dress, and sobbed aloud. “I have sinned,” she said, “I have sinned, but not willingly; my greatest guilt was my deceitfulness, my sly ingratitude.” “You were deceitful,” Heather answered. “Oh! Bessie, how could you, how was it possible for you, to engage yourself to Gilbert Harcourt, caring, as you must have done——” “Heather, you are wrong,” broke in Bessie; “I was engaged to Gilbert Harcourt before I ever saw the—the—father of my child. You know what a life I had at home; you know any life would have seemed preferable to that. Across it in an unlucky hour Mr. Harcourt walked. He fell in love with me—he was a good creature and a kindly, and so, though I did not care for him in the least, I said yes when he asked me to marry him—said yes, prompted and badgered thereto by my mother, and so became engaged.