"You can trust me a great deal farther than that, Mr. Breton," she said.
"The other night," he began, "you said that I might talk to you. I've been pretty lonely lately—and it would help me if——"
"Anything you like," she assured him.
"Besides, there's more than that," he went on. "You've heard—of course you must have heard all kinds of things against me. You're in the enemy's camp and I don't suppose they measure their words. I don't know why you've been so decent to me as you have after what you must have heard——"
"Don't worry your head about that," she said. "We all have our enemies."
"No, but now that we're friends I'd like you to know my side of it all. I don't want to make myself out a hero or blacken all the other people, but there is something to be said for me—there is—there is——"
He muttered these last words with the deepest intensity. He seemed to fling them through the window into the square, as though he were standing out there, on his defence, before all those listening lighted windows.
"I've been a fool—a thousand times. I've done silly things often and once or twice bad, rotten things, but all these others—these virtuous people who are so ready to judge me, have they been any better?"
"My father was a scoundrel, although I loved him and would love him now if he came back—but he was just as bad as they make 'em and there's no use in denying it. He'd tell you so himself if he were here. He broke my poor mother's heart and killed her. I don't remember her—I was no age at all when she died—but I've got an old picture of her, kept it always with me; she must have been rather like my cousin Rachel, who was here the other day——"
Lizzie watched his face. There had left him now all that hint of insincerity, of exaggeration that she had noticed when he had talked before. She knew that he was telling her now absolutely the truth as he saw it.