“Why, Lyn, dear, please go slower.”  Betty pressed her face to the head at her knee.

“Betty, there was another love in Con’s life—­one that should never have been there.”

This almost took Betty’s breath.  She was thankful Lynda’s eyes were turned away; but by some strange magic the words raised Truedale in Betty’s very human imagination.

“I sometimes think the—­the thing that happened—­was the working out of an old inheritance; Con has overcome much, but that caught him in its snare.  He was ready to let it ruin his whole future.  He would never have flinched—­never have known, or admitted if he had known—­what he had foregone.  But the thing was taken out of his control altogether—­the girl married another man!

“When Con came to himself again, he told me, Betty—­told me so simply, so tragically, that I saw what a deep cut the experience had made in his life—­how it had humbled him.  Never once did he blame any one else.  I loved him for the way he looked upon it; so many men could not have done so.  That made the difference with me.  It was what the thing had done to Con that made it possible for me to love him the more!

“He wanted the best things in life but didn’t think he was worthy!  And I?  Well, I thought I saw enough for us both, and so I married him!  Then something happened—­it doesn’t matter what it was—­it was a foolish, ugly thing, but it had to be something.  And Con thought I had never forgiven the—­the first love—­that I had sacrificed myself for him—­in marriage!  And no woman could bear that.”

“My poor, dear Lyn.”

“Can’t you see, Betty, it all comes from the idiotic idea that men—­some men—­have about women.  They put us on a toppling pedestal; when we fall they are surprised, and when we don’t they—­are afraid of us!  And all the time—­you know this, Betty—­we ought not to be on pedestals at all; we don’t—­we don’t belong on them!  We want to be close and go along together.”

“Yes, Lyn; we do! we do!”

“Well—­after Con misunderstood, I just let him go along thinking I was—­well, the kind of woman who could sacrifice herself.  I thought he would want me so that he would—­find out.  And so we’ve been eating our hearts out—­for ages!”

“Why, Lyn! you cruel, foolish girl.”

“Yes—­and because I knew you would say that—­I could come to you.  You—­do not blame Con?”

“Blame him!  Why, Lyn, a gentleman doesn’t take a woman off her beastly pedestal; she comes down herself—­if she isn’t a fool.”

“Well, Betty, I’m down!  I’m down, and I’m going to crawl to Con, if necessary, and then—­I think he’ll lift me up.”

“He’ll never pull you down, that’s one sure thing!”

“Oh! thank you, Betty.  Thank you.”

“But, Lyn—­what has so suddenly brought you to your senses?”

“Your little baby, Betty!”

“My—­baby!” The words came in a hard, gasping breath.