"You're as bad as she is. How can you bring yourself to speak of it, if you're a modest girl? You've just told us that your sister's shameless. Are we to suppose that you're defending her?"
"I am defending her. There's nobody else to do it. You've all set on her and tortured her——"
"Not all, Gwenda," said Rowcliffe. But she did not heed him.
"She'd have told you everything if you hadn't frightened her. You haven't had an atom of pity for her. You've never thought of her for a minute. You've been thinking of yourselves. You might have killed her. And you didn't care."
The Vicar looked at her.
"It's you, Gwenda, who don't care."
"About what she's done, you mean? I don't. You ought to be gentle with her, Papa. You drove her to it."
Rowcliffe answered.
"We'll not say what drove her, Gwenda."
"She was driven," she said.