“Yes, I've borne it as long as I can. Huh! you can't guess how much I know. I was awake last Friday night and overheard your plan to run off with Nelson Floyd. I was in a yard of you, crouched down behind the rose-bushes. You said you'd decide by to-night, and ever since then I've been tortured like a condemned soul. That's what affected my brain to-day. It wasn't the sun. Since that awful hour I have been praying God to spare you--to have mercy on my misguided child, and I hoped He would do it, but to-night, while you were putting the dishes away, I came in here and saw your packed valise, and knew you had concluded to leave. Then--then I decided to--to go like Sister Martha did. I was going out in the meadow, by the creek, where it was quiet. I couldn't bear the thought of having to face all those curious people who will throng the house to-morrow to find out about your disgrace.” “You say you were there?” Cynthia gasped--“you heard?” “Every word,” answered Mrs. Porter; “and every one was a rusty nail in my heart.” There was silence. Cynthia had no defence to offer. She simply sat with bowed head, her arm lying limp upon her mother's thinly clad shoulders.' “Yes, you made up your mind to stain forever our family record. No other girl that I ever heard of, even among our far-off kin, ever threw away her honor as you--” “Stop, mother, you are going too far!” Cynthia cried, removing her arm and standing erect before the old woman. “Cynthia, my _poor, poor baby!_ in all that man said the other night he didn't once mention marriage. “But he meant it, mother!” broke from the girl's pallid lips--“he meant it!” “He didn't mean anything of the kind, you little fool! As plain as plain could be, he said, right out, that he had no name to give you. And any fool knows no marriage can be legal unless it is brought about under the lawful names of the contracting parties. He simply was trying to give you to understand that he wanted you as a companion in his sin and misery. He has lost his right to a foothold in society, and he wants you, of your own accord and free will, to renounce yours. It was a crazy idea, and one that could have come from none but a brain disordered by liquor, but that is what he had in view.” “I don't believe it,” Cynthia said, firmly. “It doesn't make any difference what you believe,” Mrs. Porter returned. “I'm older than you, and I see through him. He tried and tried to ruin you as he did Minnie Wade, but when he was reduced to despair by his trouble he rose from his debauch and wanted to turn his very misfortune to your undoing. The idiot was trying to make himself believe, because his parents had brought all that nastiness down on him, that he would be justified in a like course. The disgrace he had inherited he intended to hand down to another generation, and you--you poor, simple thing!--you calmly packed your white, unspotted things and were ready to sell yourself to his hellish purpose.”