"Sit down," said he; and when they had taken seats she resumed, with
downcast eyes:

"You know,--probably I should have said this in the confessional, but"--

"No matter, Madame Delphine; I understand; you did not want an oracle,
perhaps; you want a friend."

She lifted her eyes, shining with tears, and dropped them again.

"I"--she ceased. "I have done a"--she dropped her head and shook it
despondingly--"a cruel thing." The tears rolled from her eyes as she
turned away her face.

Père Jerome remained silent, and presently she turned again, with the
evident intention of speaking at length.

"It began nineteen years ago--by"--her eyes, which she had lifted, fell
lower than ever, her brow and neck were suffused with blushes, and she
murmured--"I fell in love."

She said no more, and by and by Père Jerome replied:

"Well, Madame Delphine, to love is the right of every soul. I believe in
love. If your love was pure and lawful I am sure your angel guardian
smiled upon you; and if it was not, I cannot say you have nothing to
answer for, and yet I think God may have said 'She is a quadroone; all
the rights of her womanhood trampled in the mire, sin made easy to
her--almost compulsory,--charge it to account of whom it may concern.'"