“Don’t suppose I am speaking out of mere curiosity,” he went on. “And pray don’t answer me unless you can answer without betraying any confidence which may have been placed in you.” “Confidence!” she repeated. “What confidence do you mean?” “It has just struck me that you might have felt more than a common interest in the questions which you put to me a moment since,” he answered. “Were you by any chance speaking of some unhappy woman--not the person who frightened you, of course--but of some other woman whom you know?” Her head sank slowly on her bosom. He had plainly no suspicion that she had been speaking of herself: his tone and manner both answered for it that his belief in her was as strong as ever. Still those last words made her tremble; she could not trust herself to reply to them. He accepted the bending of her head as a reply. “Are you interested in her?” he asked next. She faintly answered this time. “Yes.” “Have you encouraged her?” “I have not dared to encourage her.” His face lighted up suddenly with enthusiasm. “Go to her,” he said, “and let me go with you and help you!” The answer came faintly and mournfully. “She has sunk too low for that!” He interrupted her with a gesture of impatience. “What has she done?” he asked. “She has deceived--basely deceived--innocent people who trusted her. She has wronged--cruelly wronged--another woman.” For the first time Julian seated himself at her side. The interest that was now roused in him was an interest above reproach. He could speak to Mercy without restraint; he could look at Mercy with a pure heart. “You judge her very harshly,” he said. “Do _you_ know how she may have been tried and tempted?” There was no answer. “Tell me,” he went on, “is the person whom she has injured still living?” “Yes.” “If the person is still living, she may atone for the wrong. The time may come when this sinner, too, may win our pardon and deserve our respect.” “Could _you_ respect her?” Mercy asked, sadly. “Can such a mind as yours understand what she has gone through?” A smile, kind and momentary, brightened his attentive face. “You forget my melancholy experience,” he answered. “Young as I am, I have seen more than most men of women who have sinned and suffered. Even after the little that you have told me, I think I can put myself in her place. I can well understand, for instance, that she may have been tempted beyond human resistance. Am I right?” “You are right.” “She may have had nobody near at the time to advise her, to warn her, to save her. Is that true?” “It is true.”