"Yes--in Virginia. All the wrong I have done, all the indulgence I have allowed myself, is the wrong I did and the indulgence I allowed myself in Virginia. There were days in Virginia when I suppose I was bad enough"-- "Tell me that afterward," said Agnes. "I want to know how you reached it." "I reached it," answered Bertha, "in this way: the thing that was my first trouble grew until it was too strong for me--or I was too weak for it. It was my own fault. Perhaps I ought to have known, but I did not. I don't think that I have let any one but myself suffer for my mistake. I couldn't do that. When I found out what a mistake it was, I told myself that it was mine, and that I must abide by it. And in time I thought I had grown quite hard, and I amused myself, and said that nothing mattered; and I did not believe in emotion, and thought I enjoyed living on the surface. I disliked to hear stories of any strong feeling. I tried to avoid reading them, and I was always glad when I heard clever worldly speeches made. I liked Laurence first, because he said such clever, cold-blooded things. He was at his worst when I first knew him. He had lost all his money, and some one had been false to him, and he believed nothing." "I did not know," said Agnes, "that _he_ had a story." And then she added, a trifle hurriedly, "But it does not matter." "It mattered to him," said Bertha. "And we all have a story--even poor Larry--and even I--even I!" Then she went on again. "There was one thing," she said, "that I told myself oftener than anything else, and that was that I was not unhappy. I was always saying that and giving myself reasons. When my dresses were becoming, and I went out a great deal, and people seemed to admire me, I used to say, 'How few women are as happy! How many things I have to make me happy!' and when a horrible moment of leisure came, and I could not bear it, I would say, 'How tired I must be to feel as I do; and what nonsense it is!' The one thing Richard has liked most in me has been that I have not given way to my moods, and have always reasoned about them. Ah! Agnes, if I had been happier I might have given way to them just a little sometimes, and have been less tired. If I were to die now I know what they would remember of me: that I laughed a great deal, and made the house gay." She went on without tears.