"Well, I'm sure you deserve money, Pauline, from one quarter or another; you've worked hard enough for it, I know, and now I do hope your Mr. Hawtree will turn up soon and be all right, and that you'll be happily married to him and get away for a time from all these troubles. I want you should know, Pauline, that I think it was noble of you to work so hard to raise that money to keep little Angeel; yes, I call it noble, and I'm proud of you and sorry I ever thought——"
She paused and Pauline took up the unfinished phrase.
"Sorry you ever thought she was mine? I forgive you, my dear, but about my nobility, make no mistake. What I did I did, but I did it all coldly, passively, with nothing but hatred and loathing in my heart, with nothing but pride and selfishness setting me on to do it. I know this was wrong, but I could not get into any other frame of mind; I could never overcome my horror and repulsion of the whole matter. And now—it is just as bad—worse. If I thought I should have to live with her, with them, I could not stand it, Sara, I could not, I could not! Why must I be tried so, why must I suffer so? Oh, it is because I have a bad heart, a bad nature! Yes, yes, that must be it! I have a bad nature, Sara, a bad, bad nature!"
"No, no, Pauline!" said her friend soothingly, and the matter dropped.
Later they were sitting, towards evening, sewing at some item of the impalpable trousseau, Pauline alternating her spasmodic needle with reading over Mme. Prefontaine's letter and jumping up to listen down the stair.
"What do you expect's happened, anyhow?" cried Miss Cordova at last, in exasperation. "Mr. Ringfield's a clergyman! he's a perfectly moral man, and I guess that means something. What are you afraid of? Now if it was me and Schenk or Stanbury——"
Pauline's attitude and expression were alike tragic. In her cheap black dress her look of apprehensive despair was full of mournful intensity as she stood with one hand lifted and her expressive eyes fixed on shapes imaginary. Her friend's philosophy was equal to the occasion.
"Seems to me if you think so much about things that might happen but you ain't sure they have happened, you kind of make 'em happen. Sit down and be calm, for goodness sake, Pauline!"
"I can't, I can't! Oh, what's that now?"
With her hands over her heart she bounded to the top of the narrow stair.