"Can you think of none?" queried Peg, looking at her shrewdly.
Mrs. Clifton changed color.
"Perhaps so," she said. "Go on."
Peg told the whole story, so circumstantially that there was no room for doubt.
"I did not believe him capable of such great wickedness," ejaculated Mrs. Clifton, with a pained and indignant look. "It was a base, unmanly revenge to take. How could you lend yourself to it?"
"How could I?" repeated Peg. "Madam, you are rich. You have always had whatever wealth could procure. How can such as you understand the temptations of the poor? When want and hunger stare us in the face we have not the strength that you have in your luxurious homes."
"Pardon me," said Mrs. Clifton, touched by these words, half bitter, half pathetic. "Let me, at any rate, thank you for the service you have done me now. When you are released from your confinement come to me. If you wish to change your mode of life, and live honestly henceforth, I will give you the chance."
"After all the injury I have done you, you are yet willing to trust me?"
"Who am I that I should condemn you? Yes, I will trust you, and forgive you."
"I never expected to hear such words," said Peg, her heart softened, and her arid eyes moistened by unwonted emotion; "least of all from you. I should like to ask one thing."