"Go on; what made you change your mind? Was it because I had got back my senses, and you were afraid I should tell?" She spoke with a jeer in her voice. "No; it changed of itself when I saw baby out in that boat alone--my brother's poor little child. I said then,'O, let me save him, and I'll give up everything!'" "And supposing that nothing had happened to Jack, and that I had not got back my senses, how could you even then have married Paul, Eve Bruce?--let let him take as his wife a woman who did what you did?" "What I did was not wrong," said Eve, rising, a spot of red in each cheek. She looked down upon little Cicely. "It was not wrong," she repeated, firmly. "'Blood for blood'?" quoted Cicely, with another jeer. "Yes, that is what Paul said," Eve answered. And she sank down again, her face in her hands. "You say you have given him up;--are you going to tell him the reason why you do it?" pursued Cicely, with curiosity. "How can I?" "Well, it would keep him from pursuing you,--if he does pursue." "I don't want him to stop!" "Oh! you're not in earnest, then; you are going to marry him, after all? See here, Eve, I'll be good; I'll never tell him, I'll promise." "No," said Eve, letting her hands fall; "I gave him up when I said, 'If I can only save baby!'" Her face had grown white again, her voice dull. "What are you afraid of? Hell? At least you would have had Paul here. _I_ should care more for that than for anything else." "We're alike!" said Eve. "If we are, do it, then; I should. It's a muddle, but that is the best way out of it." "You don't understand," Eve replied. "What I'm afraid of is Paul himself." "When he finds out?" "Yes." "I told you I wouldn't tell." "Oh, any time; after death--in the next world." "You believe in the next world, then?" "Yes." "Well, I should take all the happiness I could get in this," remarked Cicely. "I care for it more than you do--more than you do?" said Eve, passionately. Cicely gave a laugh of pure incredulity. "But I _cannot_ face it--his finding out," Eve concluded. Cicely gazed at her. "How handsome you are to-day! What are men, after all? Poor things compared to _us_. What wouldn't we do for them when we love them?--what _don't_ we do? And what do they ever do for us in comparison? Paul--he ought to be at your feet for such a love as you have given him; instead of that, we both know that he _would_ mind; that he couldn't rise above it, couldn't forget. See here"--she ran to Eve, and put her arms round her, excitedly--"supposing that he is better than we think,--supposing that I should go to him and tell him the whole, and that he should come here and say: 'What difference does that make, Eve? We will be married to-morrow.'" And she looked up at Eve, her dark little face flushed for the moment with unselfish hopefulness. "No," answered Eve, slowly, "he couldn't, he loved Ferdie so!" She raised her right hand and looked at it. "He would see me holding it--taking aim--"