Jo tried not to smile; she felt she was taking of Marcel’s best under false pretences. Had she been what they all thought, this neighbourly act would have bowed her with gratitude. As it was she felt a deeper sympathy for Marcel than she had ever felt, and she yearned to confide in her—but she dared not. "Nights I get to thinking," Marcel droned on while Jo’s busy fingers flew at her task, "how it was with you when she came," Marcel nodded toward the couch. And now Jo’s face twitched. How little any one guessed, or could guess, how it had been with her at the time when another woman gave birth to the girl. "I got through somehow," she replied vaguely. "We never get to a wall without finding an opening to crawl through, Marcel. It may be a pretty tight squeeze, but we get through." "God knows those times are hard for a woman, Mam’selle." "They are, bitter hard." "And men folks don’t take them into account." "How can they, Marcel? It wouldn’t be reasonable to expect it." "It’s queer, Mam’selle, how this—this thing that makes women willing to go through it, goes on and on. It means one thing to a woman; another to a man, but it seems to pay, though the Lord knows why, or how." Jo was thinking of the subtle something that she, poor Tom Gavot, Marcel, and all the rest clung to. The thing that none of them understood. "I’m glad you’ve got her!" Marcel suddenly broke in fiercely, again nodding toward the sleeping girl. "It just proves that you, Mam’selle, had the woman’s reason, not the man’s. That makes the difference. A woman cannot, a decent woman I mean, forgive a woman for acting like a man; casting off her young and all that, but she can understand—this! And isn’t she fine and rare, Mam’selle. It’s another queer thing, how many a child that comes in the straight and narrow way isn’t half what it should be. Sometimes they just haven’t spirit enough to stay, mine didn’t, and then such children as—as yours, Mam’selle, seem to have God’s blessing shining all over them." So firmly and simply had Marcel accepted what, in reality, did not exist that poor Jo felt the uselessness of confession drawing closer and closer about her. For some days past she had been considering Marcel as a recipient for the truth, for Jo hated to accept, without some protest, the belief that she felt was spreading among her silent people. It might ease her own conscience to confide in Marcel; it might be a bit of proof in the future, but unless she told all the truth she could hardly hope to impress even the kindly Marcel, for she saw that the shabby, down-trodden woman was accepting her as the most vital and absorbing thing that had ever happened in her life. Jo, in her real self, had never inspired Marcel. Jo, in her present guise, not only claimed interest, but aroused purpose. She brought to life the struggling nobility that was inherent in Marcel but which life had never before utilized.