“I can help with money for a good lawyer.  That is why I brought these bank notes.”  Again she offered the notes.  “You won’t refuse them—­for him?”

But Alice pushed the money from her.  “A lawyer’s efforts might free him in the future, your testimony will free him now.”

“Then you will betray me?” demanded the woman fiercely.

“Betray?” answered the girl.  “That’s a fine-sounding word, but what does it mean?  I shall do the best I can for the man I love.”

“Ha!  The best you can!  And what is that?  To make him ashamed of you!  To make him suffer!”

“Suffer?”

“Why not?  Don’t you suppose he will suffer to find that you have no sympathy with his wishes?”

“What do you mean?”

“You threaten to do the very thing that he went to prison to prevent.  You’re going to denounce me, aren’t you?”

“To save him—­yes.”

“When it isn’t necessary, when it will cause a dreadful calamity.  If he wanted to be saved that way, wouldn’t he denounce me himself?  He knows my name, he knows the whole story.  Wouldn’t he tell it himself if he wanted it told?”

The girl hesitated, taken aback at this new view.  “I suppose he thinks it a matter of honor.”

“Exactly.  And you who pretend to love him have so little heart, so little delicacy, that you care nothing for what he thinks a matter of honor.  A pretty thing your sense of honor must be!”

“Oh!” shrank Alice, and the woman, seeing her advantage, pursued it relentlessly.  “Did you ever hear of a debt of honor?  How do you know that your lover doesn’t owe me such a debt and isn’t paying it now down there?”

So biting were the words, so fierce the scorn, that Alice found herself wavering.  After all, she knew nothing of what had happened, nor could she be sure of Lloyd’s wishes.  He had certainly spoken of things in his life that he regretted.  Could it be that he was bound in honor to save this woman at any cost? As she stood irresolute, there came up from below the sound of steps on the stairs, ascending steps, nearer and nearer, then distinctly the clatter of Valentine’s wooden shoes, then another and a heavier tread.  The sacristan was coming.

“Here is your chance,” taunted the lady; “give me up, denounce me, and then remember what Lloyd will remember always, that when a distressed and helpless sister woman came to you and trusted you, you showed her no pity, but deliberately wrecked her life.”

Half sorry, half triumphant, but without a word, Alice watched the torture of this former rival; and now the loud breathing of the sacristan was plainly heard on the stairs.

“Remember,” flung out the other in a final defiance that was also a final appeal, “remember that nothing brought me here but the sacredness of a love that is gone, a sacredness that I respect and he respects but that you trample on.”