"What would you have advised?" Mam'selle dropped her eyes and the forbidding brows seemed to hide every kindly expression of her face.
"I should have strongly advised against letting the innocent suffer for the guilty!" Mantelle's voice was stern.
"Yes, but she had to have a home; care, the best possible."
"To give that, daughter, is not in your power. In violating the most sacred emotions of life, in spurning the very safeguards of society, you put yourself outside the pale, as far as the child's best good is concerned. Women should fully understand this before they take the fatal step. The price must be paid! If, by assuming your duty at this late day you could condone the past, I would help you, but I cannot advise keeping this girl here. For her truest good, she should be saved, where only such unfortunates can be saved."
"And that is?" Mam'selle's voice was slow and even.
"In the bosom of the church, daughter. Send the child to St. Michael's; let them train her there for a life of devotion and service in a field where temptation, inherited weakness——"
Mantelle got no further for Jo—laughed!
The priest rose in his chair, white with anger.
"You laugh?" he said as if his hearing had betrayed him.
"Forgive me, Father, but it struck me as being rather hard on the girl that, for a wrong she never committed, she should be condemned to—to exile; not even given a chance of her own."