“One night he came in here. The next night I kissed the pillow his head would lie on. For a year I was happy; for another I alternated between joy and anguish, jealousy and peace, despair and hope. Then a year of misery, during which he brutally cast me off. It was that which drove me to the Catholic Church—not only the peace it promised, but the knowledge that with baptism my sin would be washed away—for when happiness went remorse began. I have not a brain of iron, like that woman he married. She could snap her past in two and fling it behind her. She could snap her fingers at moral laws, if it suited her purpose, and know no regret, provided she had had nothing to regret meanwhile. That was one reason why I hated her. “Oh, how I hated her! How I hated her! Beverly never had any reserve, and he made love to her before my eyes. He was infatuated. His affection for me was an incidental fancy compared to his mad passion for that woman. And month after month! Month after month! And I loved him still! “I never dared say to myself that when the time came I should have vengeance, for such a resolution I should be obliged to confess; and the priest would make me promise to thrust it out, or refuse me absolution. But down in my heart I knew that when the hour came the temptation would conquer. It came first when I let him drink the morphine. And when I saw her in court, when her lover gave me that sudden suggestion, when I knew that I could send her to that horrible chair—” She threw out her arms and laughed hysterically, “O God, I was almost happy again.” The priest rose and stood before her. There were tears in his eyes. “Poor woman!” he said. “Poor woman!” Honora’s face convulsed, but she shut her lips resolutely and tapped the floor with her foot. “There is pardon and peace in the Church,” he continued softly; “and not only for the sake of that poor girl at Sing Sing, battling to-night with horror and terror, sleepless, listening to the solemn tramp of the death watch, counting the hours that are marching her to that hideous death, but for the future peace of your own soul, speak out and save her. Think of the years of torment, of remorse, when you will not have the excitement of the present, the pressure of your wrongs to sustain you. Speak out, and I will give you absolution, and your soul shall know peace.” But Honora threw back her head and laughed. “No! No!” she said. “I am not so weak as that. I have no intention of going to pieces at the last moment. It is only her death that will give me peace.” He bent his long body backward, drawing himself up to his full imposing height. “And have you thought of what will be the penalty?” he said, in a low voice, and with an intonation that was almost a chant. She shuddered, but dragged her eyes away. “I don’t care!” she said passionately. “I don’t care!” “You are sure?” he said, in the same voice.