But ghosts from the dead past would rise up and haunt her, troubling her repose.
"The man is a fiend!" she groaned again. "Why cannot he leave that beautiful, innocent girl in peace? I have done wrong in my life, I know, but nothing so bad as what he asks of me, to lend myself to a vile plot against the peace of a girl who has never harmed me, a girl who has won my liking by her high-bred courtesy, as freely given to me as if I were her equal, instead of a paid dependent. How kind and good they all are to me, and how can I repay their bounty by such treachery?"
All the good in her nature rose to the surface, and did battle against the wrong she was asked to do.
And yet she dared not refuse; dared not risk what her tempter threatened.
Cruel had been her battle with poverty before she obtained this situation.
And if she lost it the dire struggle would begin again.
She might not be able to get honest work; she might be tossed into the terrible maelstrom of women who had to sin for bread.
Yet how could she, who was trying to redeem her own life from a hideous stain, how could she vilely plan to wreck another's life?
It was a terrible struggle that was going on in her breast as she kept her lonely vigil there.