He answered with only a strange unnatural laugh through his teeth.

"Whip me and let me die then," she said.

He spoke no word. She spoke again. Despair gave her both insight and
utterance--despair and great love, and the truth of God that underlies
even despair.

"You pressed me to marry you," she said: "what was I to do? How could I
tell you? And I loved you so! I persuaded myself I was safe with
you--you were so generous. You would protect me from every thing, even
my own past. In your name I sent it away, and would not think of it
again. I said to myself you would not wish me to tell you the evil that
had befallen me. I persuaded myself you loved me enough even for that. I
held my peace trusting you. Oh my husband! my Paul! my heart is crushed.
The dreadful thing has come back. I thought it was gone from me, and
now it will not leave me any more. I am a horror to myself. There is no
one to punish and forgive me but you. Forgive me, my husband. You are
the God to whom I pray. If you pardon me I shall be content even with
myself. I shall seek no other pardon; your favor is all I care for. If
you take me for clean, I _am_ clean for all the world. You can make me
clean--you only. Do it, Paul; do it, husband. Make me clean that I may
look women in the face. Do, Paul, take the whip and strike me. I long
for my deserts at your hand. Do comfort me. I am waiting the sting of
it, Paul, to know that you have forgiven me. If I should cry out, it
will be for gladness.--Oh, my husband,"--here her voice rose to an agony
of entreaty--"I was but a girl--hardly more than a child in knowledge--I
did not know what I was doing. He was much older than I was, and I
trusted him!--O my God! I hardly know what I knew and what I did not
know: it was only when it was too late that I woke and understood. I