“Why do you ask me such a question?” she said, in an almost inarticulate voice.
Mrs. Truebody took a firmer hold of her hand.
“Look in my eyes, my child,” she said solemnly; “answer me truly—are you ignorant of your actual condition?”
“My—my condition!” feebly echoed Helen.
“Know you not, my poor girl,” exclaimed Mrs. Truebody, in a deep and earnest tone, “that ere a few short months have passed over your head, you will become a mother?”
Helen’s face became instantly of a ghastly whiteness. She turned an affrighted glare upon Mrs. Truebody. Her lips moved as though she would speak but could not. A film spread itself over her eyes, a moment before unnaturally bright, and she swooned away.
Mrs. Truebody let fall her hand, and hastened to apply restoratives.
Her tears fell fast upon the pallid countenance over which she bent like a tender mother.
“Poor child” she murmured. “Poor deluded child! Riches have not saved her from sin, nor spared her sorrow. Oh, woman! woman! you, who claim this frail creature as your child, what have you not to answer for!”
Once again Helen became conscious, and now she was face to face with her true position—now she felt more terribly the upbraidings of self-reproach, for not having complied with Hugh’s passionate appeal to her. But the opportunity was passed. He was gone—perhaps to heaven. She was here alone—alone with her sin.