"Then you do not despise me?" she asked.
"God forbid! I have seen too much of the world and of men. And if you have been foolish, if you have done wrong—which you have not, in my eyes—you are paying for it heavily enough, God knows!"
"I should feel better about it, if I had really loved him—I thought I did, but I know now that I did not—"
"Many women do not love their husbands, the fathers of their children, and it is not counted sinful," he said, smiling.
"Yes, but marriage is different—If I had loved him I should not feel so humiliated.—I was foolish and weak, I let myself go—And now—"
"And now, my dear, you pay the penalty. It is weakness, not vice, that expiates, in this world," said Ferrati grimly. "Yes, you expiate, there is no obviating that. But there is no necessity for bearing more than is unavoidable—we must consider what is to be done. The past is the past, there is no helping that, we must think of the present. Can you go home to your people?"
"Home? Oh, never!" cried Ragna, hiding her face in her hands. "They would turn me out!"
"I thought as much—the usual charity of a virtuous family. Full of self-righteousness—sends missionaries to the heathen and its own flesh and blood to perdition," he added under his breath.
"Well then, home being out of the question, we must think of something else.—Leave it to me my child. I will think it over; you shall not worry, leave it all to me. I shall not fail you."
His honest, steadfast eyes met hers, and she felt in some degree reassured and comforted.