"I am not a good woman. My father has told me so. He has shown me. I believe it."
"I guess you're tired," said grannie. She laid a motherly hand on the girl's forehead. Then she smoothed her hair, and tucked a lock behind her ear. "I guess I wouldn't say such things."
"I was never married to Tom Fulton. I thought it was right not to be. But I came here and called myself his wife. I am an adventuress. My father says so."
The old lady sat looking at her with a puzzled glance.
"You blow out the candle," she said then. "It makes it kind of hot. Now I'll move over, and you climb up here and lie down a spell. I guess it'll rest you."
Rose put out the candle, and breathed her relief now that even that light was off her tortured face. Then she did stretch herself on the bed, and grannie put out a hand and held hers.
"'T won't hurt your skirt, will it?" she asked. "You've got such pretty clothes. I shouldn't want to have 'em tumbled."
Rose spoke again with her insistent haste,--
"There! there! don't say that. It's a miserable kind of a word. Did your father come here to take you back?"
"I don't know why he came--not entirely. But he tells me to go with him. I must go."
She hesitated a moment, and they both listened to the sounds of the summer night.
"I want to be honest," Rose said at last. "It is too late--but I must do the best I can."
"It isn't ever too late," said grannie. "But I don't seem to want you to go. I'm fond of you, dear." Rose lifted the cherishing hand to her lips. "Peter is fond of you, too. He told me so to-day. It is all over between him and Electra. He told you that?"
"Dear Peter! But after this"--she was quivering with impatience to put that test--"you wouldn't be willing to have him like me--after this?"
Now grannie was silent, but only because she was thinking. The tightening clasp of her hand made that evident.
"My dear," she said at last, in her soft old voice, "you can't imagine how stupid I am. I never know how to say things right. But if it was a transgression--I suppose you'd say it was--"
Honesty rose up in the girl, and cried to be heard.
"I thought it was right," she protested sharply. "I did think it was right. About coming here I didn't think much, except that I was lonesome and afraid. Now I understand. I must pay my penalties. I must be honest. It is too late,--but it's all I can do."