"O Jenny!"

"I saw you together, dear, in the vestry last night. It was an accident.
You didn't hear me."

"O my Jenny! I would rather have died than this."

"Yes, I think you would, dear. But you must not be too sad. Life is
terrible,--like this. I understand it now. I know it was not you, or
Isabel, or me. It was just fate--and we must try and help each other.
Don't think I have been only sorry for myself. Don't think that of me.
But I think you should have trusted me, dear."

"We longed to tell you," said Theophil, with his head bowed in distress
in Jenny's lap, while she softly stroked his hair with an absent
tenderness, though her eyes looked straight in front of her, and her
voice was as if she were talking to herself.

"We longed to tell you," he repeated.

"O I wish you had."

"We feared it, dear."

"Yes, yes, I know. I was only a little child the day before yesterday. I
have never been worthy to be your wife, dear. I have known it all the
time. I should never have taken your love. It has never been mine...."

"But ..." she continued, "I will give it all back now. It is not too