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?"
There was no answer.
"Tell me," he went on, "is the person whom she has injured still
living?"
"Yes."
"If the person is still living, she may atone for the wrong. The time
may come when this sinner, too, may win our pardon and deserve our
respect."
"Could _you_ respect her?" Mercy asked, sadly. "Can such a mind as yours
understand what she has gone through?"
A smile, kind and momentary, brightened his attentive face.
"You forget my melancholy experience," he answered. "Young as I am, I
have seen more than most men of women who have sinned and suffered. Even
after the little that you have told me, I think I can put myself in
her place. I can well understand, for instance, that she may have been
tempted beyond human resistance. Am I right?"
"You are right."
"She may have had nobody near at the time to advise her, to warn her, to
save her. Is that true?"
"It is true."
"Tempted and friendless, self-abandoned to the evil impulse of the
moment, this woman may have committed herself headlong to the act which
she now vainly repents. She may long to make atonement, and may not
know how to begin. All her energies may be crushed under the despair and
horror of herself, out of which the truest repentance grows. Is such
a woman as this all wicked, all vile? I deny it! She may have a noble
nature; and she may show it nobly yet. Give her the opportunity she
needs, and our poor fallen fellow-creature may take her place again
among the best of us--honored, blameless, happy, once more!"
Mercy's eyes, resting eagerly on him while he was speaking, dropped
again despondingly when he had done.
"There is no such future as that," she answered, "for the woman whom I
am thinking of. She has lost her opportunity. She has done with hope."
Julian gravely considered with himself for a moment.
"Let us understand each other," he said. "She has committed an act of
deception to the injury of another woman. Was that what you told me?"
"Yes."
"And she has gained something to her own advantage by the act."
"Yes."
"Is she threatened with discovery?"