“It was perfectly right and proper, Miss Devon; and I thank her for her care of my interests.”  And Mrs. King bowed her acknowledgment of the service with a perfect castanet accompaniment, whereat Miss Cotton bridled with malicious complacency.

“Mrs. King, are you sure of this?” said Christie.  “Miss Cotton does not like Rachel because her work is so much praised.  May not her jealousy make her unjust, or her zeal for you mislead her?”

“I thank you for your polite insinuations, miss,” returned the irate forewoman.  “I never make mistakes; but you will find that you have made a very great one in choosing Rachel for your bosom friend instead of gome one who would be a credit to you.  Ask the creature herself if all I’ve said of her isn’t true.  She can’t deny it.”

With the same indefinable misgiving which had held her aloof, Christie turned to Rachel, lifted up the hidden face with gentle force, and looked into it imploringly, as she whispered:  “Is it true?”

The woful countenance she saw made any other answer needless.  Involuntarily her hands fell away, and she hid her own face, uttering the one reproach, which, tender and tearful though it was, seemed harder to be borne than the stern condemnation gone before.

“Oh, Rachel, I so loved and trusted you!”

The grief, affection, and regret that trembled in her voice roused Rachel from her state of passive endurance and gave her courage to plead for herself.  But it was Christie whom she addressed, Christie whose pardon she implored, Christie’s sorrowful reproach that she most keenly felt.

“Yes, it is true,” she said, looking only at the woman who had been the first to befriend and now was the last to desert her.  “It is true that I once went astray, but God knows I have repented; that for years I’ve tried to be an honest girl again, and that but for His help I should be a far sadder creature than I am this day.  Christie, you can never know how bitter hard it is to outlive a sin like mine, and struggle up again from such a fall.  It clings to me; it won’t be shaken off or buried out of sight.  No sooner do I find a safe place like this, and try to forget the past, than some one reads my secret in my face and hunts me down.  It seems very cruel, very hard, yet it is my punishment, so I try to bear it, and begin again.  What hurts me now more than all the rest, what breaks my heart, is that I deceived you.  I never meant to do it.  I did not seek you, did I?  I tried to be cold and stiff; never asked for love, though starving for it, till you came to me, so kind, so generous, so dear,—­how could I help it?  Oh, how could I help it then?”

Christie had watched Rachel while she spoke, and spoke to her alone; her heart yearned toward this one friend, for she still loved her, and, loving, she believed in her.

“I don’t reproach you, dear:  I don’t despise or desert you, and though I’m grieved and disappointed, I’ll stand by you still, because you need me more than ever now, and I want to prove that I am a true friend.  Mrs. King, please forgive and let poor Rachel stay here, safe among us.”