"Mona, don't add to my eternal worries. Go back to Derby Haven, like the dear girl that you are. And when this storm blows over--and it will soon be past--then all shall be made right. Yes, it shall, believe me." There was no answer. Christian continued. "Go at once, my girl. Here," (diving into his pockets), "I've precious little money left, God help me, but here's enough to pay your way, and something to spare." He offered a purse in his palm. The girl tossed up his hand with a disdainful gesture. "It's not money I want from you," she said. Christian looked at her for a moment with blank amazement. She caught the expression, and answered it with a haughty curl of the lip. The sneer died off her face on the instant, and the tears began to gather in her eyes. "It's not love a girl wants, then?" she said struggling to curl her lip again. "It's not love, then, that a girl like me can want," she said. She had stopped the loom and covered up her face in her hands. "No, no," she added, with a stifled sob, "love is for ladies--fine ladies in silks and satins--pure--virtuous.... Christian," she exclaimed, dropping her hands and looking into his face with indignant eyes, "I suppose there's a sort of woman that wants nothing of a man but money, is there?" Christian's lips were livid. "That's not what I meant, Mona, believe me," he said. The loom was still. The sweet serenity of the air left hardly a sense of motion. "You talk of your father, too," the girl continued, lifting her voice. "What of my mother? You don't think of her. No, but I do, and it goes nigh to making my heart bleed." "Hush, Mona," whispered Christian; but, heedless of the warning, she continued: "To be torn away from the place where she was born and bred, where kith and kin still live, where kith and kin lie dead--that was hard. But it would have been harder, far harder, to remain, with shame cast at her from every face, as it has been every day for these five years." She paused. A soft boom came up to them from the sea, where the unruffled waters rested under the morning sun. "Yes, we have both suffered," said Christian. "What I have suffered God knows. Yes, yes; the man who lives two lives knows what it is to suffer. Talk of crime! no need of that, as the good, goody, charitable world counts crime. Let it be only a hidden thing, that's enough. Only a secret, and yet how it kills the sunshine off the green fields!" Christian laughed--a hollow, hard, cynical laugh. "To find the thing creep up behind every thought, lie in ambush behind every smile, break out in mockery behind every innocent laugh. To have the dark thing with you in the dark night. No sleep so sweet but that it is haunted by this nightmare. No dream so fair but that an ugly memory steals up at first awakening--that, yes, that is to suffer!" Just then a flight of sea-gulls disporting on a rock in the bay sent up a wild, jabbering noise.