"And you will hold me to a promise not to lift a hand to help clear the name of my friend?" reproachfully.
"Yes," unflinchingly.
"Are you doing right, my sister?"
She attempted to draw away her hand.
"Child, what can you do?"
She turned her eyes toward Olive. "She will tell you what I have done. I can do much more."
Olive came suddenly to her side. "Oh, Madeline!" she said, "let him take all this into his hands. It is not fit work for you. It will harden you, make you bitter, and—"
Madeline wrested her hand away and sprang up, standing before them flushed and goaded into bitterness.
"Yes," she cried, wildly, "I know; you need not say it. It will harden me; it has already. It will make me bitter and bad, unfit for your society, unworthy of your friendship. I shall be a liar, a spy, a hypocrite—but I shall succeed. You see, you were wrong in offering me your friendship, Doctor Vaughan. I shall not be worthy to be called your sister, but," brokenly, "you need not have feared. I never intended to presume upon your friendship; I never intended to trouble you after—after my work is done. Ah! how dared I think to become one of you—I, whom you rescued from a gambler's den; I who go about disguised, and play the servant to people whom you would not touch. You are right; after this I will go my way alone."
Her voice became inarticulate, the last word was a sob, and she turned swiftly to leave the room.