The woful countenance she saw made any other answer needless.
Involuntarily her hands fell away, and she hid her own face,
uttering the one reproach, which, tender and tearful though it was,
seemed harder to be borne than the stern condemnation gone before.

"Oh, Rachel, I so loved and trusted you!"

The grief, affection, and regret that trembled in her voice roused
Rachel from her state of passive endurance and gave her courage to
plead for herself. But it was Christie whom she addressed, Christie
whose pardon she implored, Christie's sorrowful reproach that she
most keenly felt.

"Yes, it is true," she said, looking only at the woman who had been
the first to befriend and now was the last to desert her. "It is
true that I once went astray, but God knows I have repented; that
for years I've tried to be an honest girl again, and that but for
His help I should be a far sadder creature than I am this day.
Christie, you can never know how bitter hard it is to outlive a sin
like mine, and struggle up again from such a fall. It clings to me;
it won't be shaken off or buried out of sight. No sooner do I find a
safe place like this, and try to forget the past, than some one
reads my secret in my face and hunts me down. It seems very cruel,
very hard, yet it is my punishment, so I try to bear it, and begin
again. What hurts me now more than all the rest, what breaks my
heart, is that I deceived you. I never meant to do it. I did not
seek you, did I? I tried to be cold and stiff; never asked for love,
though starving for it, till you came to me, so kind, so generous,
so dear,--how could I help it? Oh, how could I help it then?"