"It was only because I loved Lloyd so much. But he didn't die. And I began not to be happy. And then I thought Lloyd didn't want to talk to me about Alice. Alice is his daughter. It was three years ago I first noticed that. But I wasn't really sure until this summer. He didn't even like to show me her picture. That nearly killed me, Dr. Lavendar. And once, just lately, he told me her 'greatest charm was her innocence.' Oh, it was cruel in him to say that! How could he be so cruel!" she looked at him for sympathy; but he was silent. "But underneath, somehow, I understood; and that made me angry,—to understand. It was this summer that I began to be angry. And then I got so jealous: not of Alice, exactly; but of what she stood for. It was a kind of fright, because I couldn't go back and begin again. Do you know what I mean?"
"I know."
"Oh, Dr. Lavendar, it is so horrible! When I began to understand, it seemed like something broken—broken—broken! It could never be mended."
"No."
…Sometimes, as she went on he asked a question, and sometimes made a comment. The comment was always the same: when she spoke of marrying Frederick to get away from her bleak life with her grandmother, she said, "Oh, it was a mistake, a mistake!"
And he said, "It was a sin."
And again: "I thought Lloyd would make me happy; I just went to be happy; that was my second mistake."
"It was your second sin."
"You think I am a sinner," she said; "oh, Dr. Lavendar, I am not as bad as you think! I always expected to marry Lloyd. I am not like a—fallen woman."
"Why not?" said Dr. Lavendar.