"I refuse to grant it."

"Hear it first."

"No!"

"Hear it--in your own interest. She asks permission to leave the
house, never to return again. While she is still innocent--"

His wife eyed him with a look of unutterable contempt. He
submitted to it, but not in silence.

"A man doesn't lie, Catherine, who makes such a confession as I
am making now. Miss Westerfield offers the one atonement in her
power, while she is still innocent of having wronged you--except
in thought."

"Is that all?" Mrs. Linley asked.

"It rests with you," he replied, "to say if there is any other
sacrifice of herself which will be more acceptable to you."

"Let me understand first what the sacrifice means. Does Miss
Westerfield make any conditions?"

"She has positively forbidden me to make conditions."

"And goes out into the world, helpless and friendless?"