“Yes, now I understand.”
“Go on; what made you change your mind? Was it because I had got back my senses, and you were afraid I should tell?” She spoke with a jeer in her voice.
“No; it changed of itself when I saw baby out in that boat alone—my brother’s poor little child. I said then,‘O, let me save him, and I’ll give up everything!’”
“And supposing that nothing had happened to Jack, and that I had not got back my senses, how could you even then have married Paul, Eve Bruce?—let let him take as his wife a woman who did what you did?”
“What I did was not wrong,” said Eve, rising, a spot of red in each cheek. She looked down upon little Cicely. “It was not wrong,” she repeated, firmly.
“‘Blood for blood’?” quoted Cicely, with another jeer.
“Yes, that is what Paul said,” Eve answered. And she sank down again, her face in her hands.
“You say you have given him up;—are you going to tell him the reason why you do it?” pursued Cicely, with curiosity.
“How can I?”
“Well, it would keep him from pursuing you,—if he does pursue.”