“I guess—I can’t help it,” choked Bernie.
Madelaine softly pressed the two cold hands she held.
“Now then, dear, let’s have the story. What’s frightening you most?”
“Madge! I’ve got to tell you how it happened. I can’t tell you his name. I just can’t! Don’t ask me why I can’t. But—I just can’t——”
“I know, dear. You love him. To protect the man who has taken advantage is a feminine atavism since river-drift days, I suppose. I don’t want to know his name. And I only want to know the story as it helps to show what’s bothering you most.”
“Madge! It happened this way. One night——”
The rain stopped after a time. The clouds rolled away toward the southeast. Stars shone brightly. The roar of the Springfield evening traffic, the honk of motor cars, the purring grind of trolleys, arose to the room where Madelaine had lowered the upper sash of the big window. When Bernice completed her ragged story, she was leaning forward, weeping intermittently. Madelaine was a silhouette in the semi-dark. She rocked slowly.
“But, Bernice,” she said at last, “why should you do it? I’m not rebuking you, dear. I’m asking for information. I can’t understand it. Why didn’t an intuitive reserve and decency prompt you to conserve yourself? Why didn’t the very greatness of your love urge you to nurture and cherish those things which lie at the root of it—not squander and spatter and waste and cheapen them?”
“I don’t know, Madge. Somehow I just felt devilish. I wanted to do something shockingly wicked. I wanted to get as far away from all the goodness and decency I’ve known all my life as I could. That’s the truth, Madge. At the moment I didn’t care. I’ll tell you more truth: I gloried in it! Yes, I did! I was glad I was wicked—until—until I saw I was going to face all the penalty.”
“I can’t understand,” murmured Madelaine.