and amazed ejaculation:

"You confess it--you actually confess it--you told a lie!"

It was all they could say. The situation was new, unheard of,
incredible; they could not understand it, they did not know
how to take hold of it, it approximately paralyzed speech.

At length it was decided that the erring child must be taken to
her mother, who was ill, and who ought to know what had happened.
Helen begged, besought, implored that she might be spared this
further disgrace, and that her mother might be spared the grief
and pain of it; but this could not be: duty required this sacrifice,
duty takes precedence of all things, nothing can absolve one from
a duty, with a duty no compromise is possible.

Helen still begged, and said the sin was her own, her mother had
had no hand in it--why must she be made to suffer for it?

But the aunts were obdurate in their righteousness, and said the
law that visited the sins of the parent upon the child was by all
right and reason reversible; and therefore it was but just that the
innocent mother of a sinning child should suffer her rightful share
of the grief and pain and shame which were the allotted wages of the sin.

The three moved toward the sick-room.


At this time the doctor was approaching the house. He was still
a good distance away, however. He was a good doctor and a good man,