"Are we alone?"
"Yes, all alone."
"Well, then, I will begin," Pepeeta said, and in a voice choked with emotion, the poor sufferer breathed out the tale of her sin and her sorrow. She told all. She did not shield herself, and everywhere she could she softened the wrong done by David. It was a long story, and was interrupted only by the ticking of the great clock in the hallway, telling off the moments with as little concern as when three years before it had listened to the story told to David by his mother. When the confession was ended a silence followed, which Dorothea broke by asking gently:
"May I look, now?"
"If you can forgive me," Pepeeta answered.
The tender-hearted woman rose, approached the bedside and kissed the quivering lips.
"Have you forgiven me?" Pepeeta asked, seizing the face in her thin hands and looking almost despairingly into the great blue eyes.
"As I hope to be forgiven," Dorothea answered, kissing her again and again.
A look of almost perfect happiness diffused itself over the pale countenance.
"It is too much—too much. How can it be? It was such a great wrong!" she exclaimed,