taken that way as medicine I didn't find them very interesting. If I clung
to one more than another, that one was not asked soon again for fear of
inordinate affections and unbalanced enthusiasms. I was to be an all-around
young woman; so they built a wall all around me. It fitted tight at last,
and then I broke through one night and emptied my heart on the ground. My
plea, you see, is always ready. Could I have lived and kept on scorning
myself as I did that night? Do you remember?" She bent her imperative,
clears gaze upon Thorne. "I told you the truth when you gave me a chance
to lie. Heaven knows what it cost to say, 'I came with him of my own free
will!'"

Mrs. Thorne put her hand in her husband's. He pressed it absently, with his
eyes on the ground.

"It is such a mercy that I need not begin at the beginning. You know the
worst already, and your divine hesitation before judgment almost demands
that I should try to justify it. I _may_ excuse myself to you. I will not
be too proud to meet you half-way; but remember, when you tell the story to
him, everything is to be sacrificed to his cure."

"When we really love them," Mrs. Thorne unexpectedly argued, "do we want
them to be cured?"

The defendant looked at her in astonishment, "Do I understand you?" she
asked. "You must be careful. I have not told you my story. Of course I want
to influence you, but nothing can alter the facts."

There was no reply, and she took up her theme again with visible and
painful effort. A sickening familiarity, a weariness of it all before she
had begun, showed in her voice and in her pale, reluctant smile.