"That was right!—that was right!" murmured Margaret, her womanly heart aglow.
"And—and I thought that I could learn to let him go, and live without him! But—but it was too hard a lesson! I could not! You see, I loved him so!"
"Poor girl, poor girl! Oh, he was a villain! You should have——" she stopped.
"What should I have done? Gone to him and reproached him? Oh, you do not know him! It would have made him hate me, and parted us forever and ever!"
"The law—there is justice," said Margaret.
The girl shook her head in dull misery.
"No, my pride was too great for that. Besides, I did not want my friends to know how I was treated. There was only one thing to do"—she paused, and her dark, restless eyes fixed themselves covertly on Margaret's face as if she were waiting for a cue.
"What was that?" breathed Margaret, bending forward.
"To go to the girl he had deserted me for, to go to her and pray her to let him come back to me. He was deceiving her, leading her astray, and she might turn on me and laugh at me. But she looked good, and perhaps, who knew, she might listen to my prayer! She could not love him better than I do, and if she did, she might not be so lost to all shame as to keep him from his wife!"
"No, no! you were right!" said Margaret. "Why do you not go to her?"