"You--you dare to judge me!" she cried.

I knew not why she said this.

"To judge you?" I repeated.

"Yes, to judge me," she answered. "I know you, David Ritchie, and the
blood that runs in you. Your mother was a foolish--saint" (she laughed),
"who lifted her eyebrows when I married her brother, John Temple. That
was her condemnation of me, and it stung me more than had a thousand
sermons. A doting saint, because she followed your father into the
mountain wilds to her death for a whim of his. And your father. A
Calvinist fanatic who had no mercy on sin, save for that particular
weakness of his own--"

"Stop, Mrs. Temple!" I cried, lifting up in bed. And to my astonishment
she was silenced, looking at me in amazement. "You had your vengeance
when I came to you, when you turned from me with a lift of your shoulders
at the news of my father's death. And now--"

"And now?" she repeated questioningly.

"Now I thought you were changed," I said slowly, for the excitement was
telling on me.

"You listened!" she said.

"I pitied you."