"I told her papa had made her so, and that SHE ought to know it. I
told her the question troubled me unspeakably, but that I had made up
my mind it was my duty to initiate her." Adela paused, the light of
bravado in her face, as if, though struck while the words came with
the monstrosity of what she had done, she was incapable of abating a
jot of it. "I notified her that he had faults and peculiarities that
made mamma's life a long worry--a martyrdom that she hid wonderfully
from the world, but that we saw and that I had often pitied. I told
her what they were, these faults and peculiarities; I put the dots on
the i's. I said it wasn't fair to let another person marry him
without a warning. I warned her; I satisfied my conscience. She
could do as she liked. My responsibility was over."

Godfrey gazed at her; he listened with parted lips, incredulous and
appalled. "You invented such a tissue of falsities and calumnies,
and you talk about your conscience? You stand there in your senses
and proclaim your crime?"

"I'd have committed any crime that would have rescued us."

"You insult and blacken and ruin your own father?" Godfrey kept on.

"He'll never know it; she took a vow she wouldn't tell him."

"Ah I'll he damned if _I_ won't tell him!" he rang out.

Adela felt sick at this, but she flamed up to resent the treachery,
as it struck her, of such a menace. "I did right--I did right!" she
vehemently declared "I went down on my knees to pray for guidance,
and I saved mamma's memory from outrage. But if I hadn't, if I