"No, it's never the same," agreed the woman soberly.
"Was Jason as bad as they said, Marcia? Ah, you don't have to answer. There is no need for you to try to reconcile your desire to spare me—spare him—with the truth. He was as bad—probably much worse. Dear, dear Marcia." Impulsively Sylvia bent her lips to the hands so tightly clasped in hers. "I cannot imagine," she rushed on, "why, when one of my family had made you as wretched as he did, you should have wanted another in the house. Had I suffered so I should never have wished to lay eyes on any more Howes as long as I lived."
"But Jason had nothing to do with you, Sylvia."
"The same blood ran in our veins."
"Perhaps that was the reason."
"Because you could forgive, you mean?" whispered Sylvia. "You are a better Christian than I, my dear. I could never have forgiven."
"I have tried not only to forgive but to forget. I have closed the door on the past and begun a new life."
"And now into it has come this Stanley Heath," the girl said.
For the fraction of a second Marcia did not reply; then almost inaudibly she murmured:
"Yes."