"How can I help it, Father, with the training I have had? I cannot change my beliefs in a day. Oh, you know how my friends would shrink from me if they knew the truth, and I—I cannot blame them. I should do the same. There is no help, no comfort, for me anywhere."
"There is the comfort of the Church, the help of Heaven."
"Ah, yes; I forget—I forget."
"But hear your lover before you decide your future. He has a right to it, remember."
"Tell him, Father, tell him."
He went away, and, turning the light a little lower, she waited. He made the story short, for in a few minutes the door opened again and her lover entered. She rose to meet him, determined to be brave and self-possessed, but that new, bitter sense of shame again overpowered her. She seemed to shrink and shrivel under his tender eyes, and sank down with bowed head. But he knelt by her chair with his arms around her, and drew that proud, averted face against him.
"Dearest, dearest," he whispered, the very tone of his voice carrying to her his sympathy, his unshaken love.
"I thank God that I learned the truth in time," she said faintly.
"In time for what, Madeline?"
"To save you."