"Do I not know it! Alas! alas!" moaned Kate Erroll, and she continued: "Now that I have repented my sins, and am trying to be good, my past rises up to menace me on every hand with danger!"
Cissy Carroll did not answer, and she could not pity, for had not this woman robbed her life of happiness?
Suddenly Kate Erroll asked, eagerly:
"Have you never forgiven Cameron Clemens yet?"
"He has never asked me," Cissy returned, evasively.
"He would not dare after the scorn with which you dismissed him when I put in my claim to him. Ah, Miss Carroll, you did wrong, and you made my victory an easy one. If you had clung to him he would never have turned to me."
Cissy did not answer, save by the curl of a disdainful lip.
"Oh, I wronged you both most bitterly," Kate Erroll added, with keen, though late remorse. "Listen: I never loved Cameron Clemens—never; I only angled for him because he was a good catch, and I, a poor actress, loved luxury, and wanted to make a good marriage. He was not in love with me, but I pushed the flirtation so far that he could not avoid the proposal. I am sure he scarcely regarded our flirtation seriously. Before it was a week old he went away for his summer outing. He met you, and fell in love in earnest. He wrote to me, and asked release. I was furious, and would not reply. I waited—waited until just before the marriage. Then I swooped down on you, enraged you with hints that he was after your grandfather's money. You dismissed him with furious scorn—just what I wanted; and I—oh, shame to my womanhood, for I did not love him!—I pursued him till he made me his wife!"
"You did not love him? Oh, Heaven! yet you wrecked both our lives for selfish gain!" groaned Cissy, appalled at the woman's confession.
"It was cruel, oh, I know it now, but I did not then, for I had never loved, and could not realize the anguish of your loss. But I have been punished for my sins, I tell you. Of course, we led a wretched life, hating each other after a short time most bitterly. Then the tempter came in the person of a handsome young actor who taught me the meaning of love. He begged me to elope with him, promising to marry me as soon as my husband secured a divorce. Well, I fled with him, and Mr. Clemens lost no time in applying to the courts for a dissolution of his marriage bonds. Soon I was free; but did my betrayer keep his promise to me? Ah, no; he laughed me to scorn, and told me he already had a wife. All my love turned to hate, and I fled from him as from the presence of a leper. All my life since has been a struggle for honest bread. I could not return to the stage, for I could not live down the awful notoriety of my sin. Fortunately, I had a good education, and after months of wretchedness, during which I buried a nameless child, I secured this situation with these noble people. Will you let me keep it, or will you take your just revenge?"