"What I had done twice before,—that he ought to release me."
"And—is Clancy's the only confession you have heard to-day?"
"The only one." A pause: then, "I know what you mean, Kate; but he is not the man to—to offer his love to a girl he knows is pledged to another."
"But if you were free, Nellie? Tell me."
"I have no right to say, Kate; but"—and two big tears were welling up into her brave eyes, as she clasped her hands and stretched them yearningly before her—"shall I tell you what I think a girl would say if she were free and had won his love?"
"What, Nellie?"
"She would say, 'Ay.' No woman with a heart could leave a man who has borne so much and come through it all so bravely."
Poor Mrs. Rayner! Humbled and chastened as she was, what refuge had she but tears, and then—prayer?