“Let me go,” she gasped.  Annie saw that Margaret carried a suit-case, which had probably somewhat hindered her movements.  “Let me go, I shall miss the ten-thirty train,” Margaret said in her breathless voice.

“Where are you going?”

“I am going.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere,—­away from it all.”

The two struggled together as far as Alice’s gate, and to Annie’s great relief, a tall figure appeared, Alice herself.  She opened the gate and came on Margaret’s other side.

“What is the matter?” she asked.

“I am going to take the ten-thirty train,” said Margaret.

“Where are you going?”

“To New York.”

“Where in New York?”

“I am going.”

“You are not going,” said Alice Mendon; “you will return quietly to your own home like a sensible woman.  You are running away, and you know it.”

“Yes, I am,” said Margaret in her desperate voice.  “You would run away if you were in my place, Alice Mendon.”

“I could never be in your place,” said Alice, “but if I were, I should stay and face the situation.”  She spoke with quite undisguised scorn and yet with pity.

“You must think of your husband and children and not entirely of yourself,” she added.

“If,” said Margaret, stammering as she spoke, “I tell Wilbur, I think it will kill him.  If I tell the children, they will never really have a mother again.  They will never forget.  But if I do not tell, I shall not have myself.  It is a horrible thing not to have yourself, Alice Mendon.”

“It is the only way.”

“It is easy for you to talk, Alice Mendon.  You have never been tempted.”

“No,” replied Alice, “that is quite true.  I have never been tempted because—­I cannot be tempted.”

“It is no credit to you.  You were made so.”

“Yes, that is true also.  I was made so.  It is no credit to me.”

Margaret tried to wrench her arm free from Annie’s grasp.

“Let me go, Annie Eustace,” she said.  “I hate you.”

“I don’t care if you do,” replied Annie.  “I don’t love you any more myself.  I don’t hate you, but I certainly don’t love you.”

“I stole your laurels,” said Margaret, and she seemed to snap out the words.

“You could have had the laurels,” said Annie, “without stealing, if I could have given them to you.  It is not the laurels that matter.  It is you.”

“I will kill myself if it ever is known,” said Margaret in a low horrified whisper.  She cowered.

“It will never be known unless you yourself tell it,” said Annie.

“I cannot tell,” said Margaret.  “I have thought it all over.  I cannot tell and yet, how can I live and not tell?”

“I suppose,” said Alice Mendon, “that always when people do wrong, they have to endure punishment.  I suppose that is your punishment, Margaret.  You have always loved yourself and now you will have to despise yourself.  I don’t see any way out of it.”