"It was not exactly honest of you," said Marian. She was sorry as soon as she had spoken, but Mary, showing no sign of hurt or resentment, was continuing before reparation or explanation could be made. Very simply she told the hard outward facts of her story. She did not give the history of her capture, because her experience with Mrs. Turner, with the homely little woman that had called at the employment-agency, and with Philip Beekman had shown her that this could not lessen the extent of her contamination. Honestly rejecting her deception of Marian, goaded by that glimpse of Wesley Dyker into an impulse to make, at any cost to herself, the amend of truth for what fault she had committed, she was still more powerfully moved by a determination to accept without reservation the part that the world had now assigned her, and to fight under no colors save her own. Marian, her fine face drawn with pain, heard the narrative in a silence broken only when Mary had concluded with her departure from the hospital. The girl had mentioned no names. "And even this one man," murmured Marian at last, "even this man who had the courage to rescue you--even he was a visitor at such a place?" "Why, of course," said Mary, as yet unused to the idea of any blame attaching to the mere male patronage of slavery. "How else could I have got him for help?" "But you said he was in love with that woman who conducted the--house." "With Miss Rose?" "What did you call her?" "Mrs. Rose Légère she called herself, but I guess that wasn't her name. Yes, he was kind of in love with her. He was one of her favorites anyhow, but that was just because he had a pull with the politicians, you see. She let him love her so's she could work him, an' when I put him wise to that, he was glad to help me." Marian clinched her fist. "The abominable cur!" she said. "Oh, no! Not that," protested Mary. She had failed this man by retracting her affidavit, but she meant to be loyal to him wheresoever she could. His name slipped from her with no thought of consequences. "It took a lot of nerve an' goodness to do for me what Mr. Dyker done." Marian's gaze became fixed. She was a woman whose whole training had shaped her against sudden betrayal of emotion, but she needed every precept of that training now. She did not start, she did not flush, but her hands moved to the arms of her chair and gripped them hard. "Did you say Mr. Wesley Dyker?" she asked. Her voice did not betray her to the woman opposite, but Mary feared lest her own desire to defend her deliverer had betrayed him. "That's who it was, Miss Lennox," she admitted, adding anxiously: "But I didn't go to mention it. "You won't tell it to no one that could use it against him, will you?" "Oh, no!" Marian laughed a short, hard laugh and rose to hide whatever might be seen of her confusion. "Oh, no," she said; "I shan't speak of this to any enemy."