The colour flamed to Joan's face. A sense of awe and a feeling of intense relief surged up in her. "Oh, what a good thing!" she gasped, almost before she realized what she said. Mrs. Westwood sat back in her chair, her eyes no longer looked at Joan. "The child which God had given you even in your sin," she said stiffly. Joan leaned forward quickly. "I did not mean just that," she said, "and yet I did. You do not know, you can't guess, how afraid I was getting. Everyone's hand against me, and even the people who had most loved me seeming to hate me because of this." Her voice trailed into silence before the stern disapproval of the other woman's face. Yet once having started, she was driven on to speak all the jumble of thoughts that had lain in her mind these last two months. "I was not ashamed or afraid, to begin with," she hurried the words out. "It had not seemed to me wrong. I lived with him because I thought I loved him and we did not want to get married. Then one day he let me see--oh, no, I am not being quite truthful, for I had seen it before--that he was in reality ashamed of our life together. He was acting against his convictions because it amused him. I could not bear that, it seemed to drag our life together through the mud, and I left him." She could see that Mrs. Westwood was not making the slightest attempt to understand her; still she went wildly on: "I went home and it seemed all right. My life with him faded away; I suppose I had never really loved him. Then, then they found out about what was going to happen and they turned against me, even Aunt Janet;" her voice broke on the words, she buried her face in her arms, crying like a child. "Aunt Janet, Aunt Janet," she whispered again and again through her tears. Mrs. Westwood waited till the storm had spent itself, there was no sign of softening upon her face. Remorse and regret she could understand and condone, but this excusing of self, as she called Joan's explanation, struck her as being inexcusably bad. "And do you now congratulate yourself that by this accident," she laid special stress on the word, "you are to escape the punishment of your sin?" Joan raised tear-drowned eyes. "Haven't I been punished enough," she asked, "for something that I did not think was a sin?" "We cannot make or unmake God's laws in our thoughts," the other answered; "you were wilfully blind to the knowledge that was in your heart." "Oh, no," Joan began. Mrs. Westwood swept the remark aside and stood up. "We will not argue about it," she said; "I realize that you are not yet looking for the comfort or promise of pardon which I could lead you to. But, my child, do not delude yourself into the belief that thus easily have you set aside the consequences of your evil. God is not mocked, neither does He sleep. If you should ever be in any real need of help," she ended abruptly, "help which would serve to make you strong in the face of temptation, come to us, our doors are always open."