She stopped short, and her hands clutched each other hard and close. A wild thought of getting up and leaving the room came to her, and then she knew it was too late. A light flickered up from the wood-fire and fell upon her face as she slowly turned it to Agnes. For an instant Agnes simply looked at her, then she uttered a terror-stricken exclamation. "Bertha!" she cried. "Well," said Bertha; "well!" But at her next breath she began to tremble, and left her place on the hearth and stood up, trembling still. "I am tired out," she said. "I must go away. I ought not to have come here." But Agnes rose and went to her, laying her hand on her arm. She had grown pale herself, and there was a thrill of almost passionate feeling in her words when she spoke. "No," she said. "You were right to come. _This_ is the place for you." She drew her down upon the sofa and held both her hands. "Do you think I would let you go now," she said, "until you had told me everything? Do you think I did not know there was something you were struggling with? When I told you of my own unhappiness, it was because I hoped it would help you to speak. If you had not known that I had suffered you could not have told me. You _must_ tell me now. What barrier could there be between us,--two women who have--who have been hurt, and who should know how to be true to each other?" Bertha slipped from her grasp and fell upon her knees by the sofa, covering her face. "Agnes," she panted, "I never thought of this--I don't know how it has come about. I never meant to speak. Almost the worst of it all is that my power over myself is gone, and that it has even come to this,--that I am speaking when I meant to be silent. Don't look at me! I don't know what it all means! All my life has been so different--it is so unlike me--that I say to myself it cannot be true. Perhaps it is not. I have never believed in such things. I don't think I believe now; I don't know what it means, I say, or whether it will last, and if it is not only a sort of illness that I shall get better of. I am trying with all my strength to believe that, and to get better; but while it lasts"-- "Go on," said Agnes, in a hushed voice. Bertha threw out her hands and wrung them, the pretty baubles she had not removed when she undressed jingling on her wrists. "It is worse for me than for any one else," she cried. "Worse, worse! It is not fair. I was not prepared for it. I was so sure it was not true; I can't understand it. But, whether it is true or not, while it lasts, Agnes, while it lasts"--And she hid her face again and the bangles and serpents of silver and gold jingled more merrily than ever. "You think," said Agnes, "that you will get over it?"