"He tried to make love to you?" repeated Ethel incredulously, though a chill came at her heart as she half realised the truth of Peg's accusation.
"Ever since I've been in this house," replied Peg. "An' to-day he comes toward me with his arms stretched out. 'Kiss an' be friends!' sez he—an' in YOU walked."
"Is that true?" asked Ethel.
"On me poor mother's memory it is, Ethel!" replied Peg.
Ethel sank down into a chair and covered her eyes.
"The wretch!" she wailed, "the wretch!"
"That's what he is," said Peg. "An' ye'd give yer life into his kapin' to blacken so that no dacent man or woman would ever look at ye or spake to ye again."
"No! That is over! That is over!"
All the self-abasement of consenting to, or even considering going with, such a creature as Brent now came uppermost. She was disgusted through and through to her soul. Suddenly she broke down and tears for the first time within her remembrance came to her. She sobbed and sobbed as she had not done since she was a child.
"I hate myself," she cried between her sobs. "Oh, how I hate myself"