"Do you know what you are saying?" she demanded hoarsely.

"I do." I was quite white and stiff from my knees up, but below I
was wavery. I glanced at Jim for moral support, but he was
looking idolatrously at Bella. As for her, quite suddenly she had
dropped her mask of indifference; her face was strained and
anxious, and there were deep circles I had not seen before, under
her eyes. And it was Bella who finally threw herself into the
breach--the family breach.

"It is all my fault, Miss Caruthers," she said, stepping between
Aunt Selina and myself. "I have been a blind and wicked woman,
and I have almost wrecked two lives."

Two! What of mine?

"You see," she struggled on, against the glint in Aunt Selina's
eyes. "I--I did not realize how much I cared, until it was too
late. I did so many things that were cruel and wrong--oh, Jim,
Jim!"

She turned and buried her head on his shoulder and cried; real
tears. I could hardly believe that it was Bella. And Jim put both
his arms around her and almost cried, too, and looked
nauseatingly happy with the eye he turned to Bella, and scared to
death out of the one he kept on Aunt Selina.

She turned on me, as of course I knew she would.