"What he is to you is not the question. It is what YOU are to Archie! Your sin has been your refusal to acknowledge him. Now you are brought face to face with the consequences. The world will forgive a woman all the rest, but never for deserting her child, and that, my dear sister, IS PRECISELY WHAT YOU DID TO ARCHIE."
Jane's gaze was riveted on Lucy. She had never dared to put this fact clearly before—not even to herself. Now that she was confronted with the calamity she had dreaded all these years, truth was the only thing that would win. Everything now must be laid bare.
Lucy lifted her terrified face, burst into tears, and reached out her hands to Jane.
"Oh, sister,—sister!" she moaned. "What shall I do? Oh, if I had never come home! Can't you think of some way? You have always been so good—Oh, please! please!"
Jane drew Lucy toward her.
"I will do all I can, dear. If I fail there is only one resource left. That is the truth, and all of it. Max can save you, and he will if he loves you. Tell, him everything!"
CHAPTER XXI
THE MAN IN THE SLOUCH HAT
The wooden arrow on the top of the cupola of the Life-Saving Station had had a busy night of it. With the going down of the sun the wind had continued to blow east-southeast—its old course for weeks—and the little sentinel, lulled into inaction, had fallen into a doze, its feather end fixed on the glow of the twilight.