will take pity on me; you may spare me--you may say to yourself that I
have been more sinned against than sinning--you may think that I have
suffered enough, and that I may live out the rest of my life with Lance.
Let me tell you, and you shall judge me."

She fell over on her knees again, rocking backwards and forwards.

"Ah, why," she cried--"why is the world so unfair?--why, when there is
sin and sorrow, why does the punishment fall all on the woman, and the
man go free? I am here in disgrace and humiliation, in shame and
sorrow--in fear of losing my home, my husband, it may even be my
life--while he, who was a thousand times more guilty than I was, is
welcomed, flattered, courted! It is cruel and unjust.

"I have told you," she said, "how hard my childhood was, how lonely and
desolate and miserable I was with my girl's heart full of love and no
one to love.

"When I was eighteen I went to live with a very wealthy family in
London, the name--I will not hide one detail from you--the name was
Cleveland; they had one little girl, and I was her governess. I went
with them to their place in the country, and there a visitor came to
them, a handsome young nobleman, Lord Dacius by name.

"It was a beautiful sunlit county. I had little to do, plenty of
leisure, and he could do as he would with his time. We had met and had
fallen in love with each other. I did not love him, I idolized him;
remember in your judgment that no one had ever loved me. No one had ever
kissed my face and said kind words to me; and I, oh! wretched, miserable
me, I was in Heaven. To be loved for the first time, and by one so