Hetty went unresisting.  When they reached the bedroom she halted and stared around as one who had lost her bearings.  She winced once and shook as Molly’s gentle fingers began to unfasten her bodice, but afterwards stood quite passive and suffered herself to be undressed as a little child.  Molly unlaced her shoes.  Molly brought cool water in a basin, bathed her face and hands, braided her hair—­the masses of red-brown hair she had been used to admire and caress, passing a hand over them as tenderly as of old; then knelt and washed the tired feet, and wiped them, feeling the arch of the instep with her bare hand and chafing them to make sure they were dry—­so cold they were.

“Won’t you say your prayers, dear?”

Hetty shook her head.

“Then at least you shall kneel by me, and I will pray for both.”

Molly’s arm was about her.  She obeyed and with her waist so encircled knelt by the bed.  And twice Molly, not interrupting her prayer, pressed the waist close to her side, and once lifted her lips and kissed the side of the brow.

They arose at length, the one confirmed now and made almost fearless by saintliness and love.  But the other, creeping first into the narrow bed, shrank away towards the wall and lay with her eyes fixed on it and staring.

“No, darling,” whispered Molly, “when you were strong and I was weak you used to comfort me.  I am the strong one now, and you shall not escape me so!”

And so it was.  Her feeble arms had suddenly become strong.  They slid, the one beneath Hetty’s shoulder, the other across and below her bosom, and straining, not to be denied, they forced her round.  Wide-eyed still, Hetty gazed up into eyes dark in the moonlight, but conquering her, piercing through all secrets.  Her own brimmed suddenly with tears and she lay quiet, her soul naked beneath Molly’s soul.

“Ay, let them come—­let them come while I hold you!”

While Hetty lay, neither winking nor moving, the big drops overbrimmed at the corners of each eye and trickled on the pillow.  As one fell, another gathered.  Silent, unchecked, they flowed, and Molly bent and watched them flowing.

“A little while—­a little while!” moaned Hetty.

“I will hold you so for ever.”

“No—­yet a little while, though you know not what you are holding.”

“Were it a thousand times worse than I think, I am holding my sister.”

“To-morrow—­”

“We will bear it together.”  Molly smiled, but very faintly.  “You forget that I shall never marry—­that I shall always need you to care for.  All my life till now you have protected me:  now I shall pay back what I owe.”

“Ah, you think I fear father?  Molly, I do not fear father at all.  I fear myself—­what I am.”  And still staring up Hetty whispered a horrible word.

“Oh hush, hush!” Molly laid a swift hand over her lips, and for a while there was silence in the room.