"You wrote to me!" Margaret exclaimed. "Why, Hannah, I wrote to you yesterday--yesterday afternoon; our letters will cross on the way, and both will arrive at the same time." "It must have been the Lord drawing us to each other." "If it had only been in time," Margaret whispered. "I must have seemed harder than I was," Hannah went on; "but I didn't forget that she was the mother of us both, and I didn't think it'd be so soon. I'll never forgive myself while I live." "I ought to have known you were not so hard as you seemed. And, of course, you didn't know what was going to happen." "It was the man that came between," said Hannah, bitterly; "it's always a man that comes between women." Then Margaret pulled herself up on the bed and sat there beside Hannah, looking at her tortured face. "Mother is lying in the next room," she said, "and can never know, but for her sake let us try and make things better between us. I want you to believe me, Hannah, when I say solemnly that I never liked Mr. Garratt, or wanted him, or could help anything that he did." "It doesn't matter," Hannah said. "He's a base and sordid man, and I've done with him forever. He's been here lately, and I've told him so. He only came after me because his mother had heard that the farm would be mine. If the truth's to be told, I never thought much of him, and as for taking a man, caring as he does for theatres and races, for I've found out that he goes to both, why, I'd rather die. But we needn't talk him any more; he'll never come here again." Then Margaret drew a little closer to her, for even through her own sorrow and the horror of the night her heart was aching for Hannah and clung to her. "What have you done about the play-acting?" Hannah asked, after a minute or two. "I have given it up," and there was another silence. Then, grim and forlorn-looking, and with the tears welling into her eyes, Hannah spoke in a low voice, as if she had brought herself to it. "Margaret," she said, "I've been very hard on you, often and often." Margaret bent her head and kissed her sister's dress and said nothing, for it was true enough, though she forgave it. "But I'd like you to understand it," Hannah went on, "then you won't think so bad of me. You see, father came when I was old enough to know, and took mother from me. I felt that he took her, and there was the way he thought about religion and the way that you thought."