The gesture, her emphasis, the extreme figure of speech she had used, were
repellent to Mr. Withers over and above his amazement at her words. As he
had not been observing her, he was totally unprepared for such an outburst.

"Daphne, my dear! Do I understand you? I cannot conceive"--

But Daphne could not wait for her meaning to sink in. "Uncle John," she
interrupted, taking a quick breath of resolution, "I have read somewhere
that if a woman is dishonest, deep down, deliberately a hypocrite, she
ought to be gently and mercifully killed; a woman not honest had better not
be alive. Uncle, I have something to say to you about myself. Gently and
mercifully listen to me, for it ought to kill me to say it!"

Mr. Withers turned apprehensively, and was startled by the expression of
Daphne's face. She was undoubtedly in earnest. He grew quite pale. "Not
here, my dear," he entreated; "not now. Let our thoughts be single for
this one hour that we shall be alone together. Let it wait for a little,
this woeful confession. I think you probably exaggerate your need of
it, as young souls are apt to who have not learned to bear the pain
of self-knowledge, or self-reproach without knowledge. Let us forget
ourselves, and think of our beloved dead."

"Uncle, it must be here and now. I cannot go away from this place a liar,
as I came. Let me leave it here,--my cowardly, contemptible falsehood,--in
this place of your cross. I am longing, like David, for that water they
have gone to find, but I will not drink at Pilgrim Station, except with
clean lips that have confessed and told you all."

Mr. Withers shrank from these unrestrained and to him indecorous statements