"Ever since I've been in this house," replied Peg. "An' to-day he
comes toward me with his arms stretched out. `Kiss an' be friends!'
sez he--an' in YOU walked."
"Is that true?" asked Ethel.
"On me poor mother's memory it is, Ethel!" replied Peg.
Ethel sank down into a chair and covered her eyes.
"The wretch!" she wailed, "the wretch!"
"That's what he is," said Peg. "An' ye'd give yer life into his
kapin' to blacken so that no dacent man or woman would ever look at
ye or spake to ye again."
"No! That is over! That is over!"
All the self-abasement of consenting to, or even considering going
with, such a creature as Brent now came uppermost. She was disgusted
through and through to her soul. Suddenly she broke down and tears
for the first time within her remembrance came to her. She sobbed
and sobbed as she had not done since she was a child.
"I hate myself," she cried between her sobs. "Oh, how I hate myself"
Peg was all pity in a moment. She took the little travelling bag
away from Ethel and put it on the table. Then with her own hands she
staunched Ethel's tears and tried to quiet her.
"Ethel acushla! Don't do that! Darlin'! Don't! He's not worth it.
Kape yer life an' yer heart clane until the one man in all the
wurrld comes to ye with HIS heart pure too, and then ye'll know what
rale happiness means.
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