She faintly answered this time. “Yes.”
“Have you encouraged her?”
“I have not dared to encourage her.”
His face lighted up suddenly with enthusiasm. “Go to her,” he said, “and let me go with you and help you!”
The answer came faintly and mournfully. “She has sunk too low for that!”
He interrupted her with a gesture of impatience.
“What has she done?” he asked.
“She has deceived—basely deceived—innocent people who trusted her. She has wronged—cruelly wronged—another woman.”
For the first time Julian seated himself at her side. The interest that was now roused in him was an interest above reproach. He could speak to Mercy without restraint; he could look at Mercy with a pure heart.
“You judge her very harshly,” he said. “Do you know how she may have been tried and tempted?”