A wicked woman! The phrase which she had addressed aloud to the mocking image in the glass, in mingled doubt and irony, clung to her meditations. Had she ever meant to be wicked--ever deliberately, or even consciously, chosen evil instead of good? No! There was no dubious reservation in her answer. Yet within the week--oh, the horrible week!--she had come to occupy a moral position for which hell could not hold too relentless or fierce a punishment. She had hugged to her heart thoughts which, when they are linked with acts, go to expiation on the gallows. She shuddered now at the recollection of them; she could recall that she had shuddered then, too. Yet all the same these thoughts were a part of her--belonged to her. She had not repelled them as alien, or as unwelcome. Even while in terror at their mien, she had embraced them. Was this not all wickedness? The reply came, in sophistical self-defense, that no one act or emotion of a life could be judged by itself. The antecedent circumstances, leading up to it, must be taken into account. She had been borne along on the current of a career shaped for her by others. She was not responsible--she had never fought with her destiny--she had done nothing but seek to bring some flowers and light and color into the desolate voyage of life. Was it fair to say that these little innocent, womanish efforts to soften a sterile existence were the cause of the shipwreck--that it was these which had brought her so suddenly, dazed and terrified, into the very breakers on the sinister rocks of crime? No, the answer came again; surely it could not be fair. Yet she had hated her husband; she had been overjoyed, even while she was affrighted, by the news of his death--or at least there was a tremulous sensation very like joy; she had hailed as her deliverer the young man whom her wild fancy made responsible for that death--yes, had even in her frenzy kissed his hand, the hand which she then believed to have blood upon it, his brother’s blood! her husband’s blood! Were not these the thoughts and actions of a wicked woman? What difference was there between her and the vilest murderess confined for life in a penitentiary? Or no! What nonsense this was! What single thing had she said or done to bring on the catastrophe? It was an accident--everybody knew that now. But even if it had not been an accident, how would she have been to blame? Was it her fault that she was pleasing in men’s eyes, or that Seth had been attracted by her, and had been sympathetic to her? How could she have helped it? Was there any reason why she should have tried to help it? Was it wrong for her, exiled as she was to this miserable farm life, to make a friend of her cousin--her husband’s brother? And if they had grown to be attached to each other, could it be wondered at?