For some time she walked rapidly up and down, pressing her hands to her hot face. Chaos was in her. She could not think. She only felt that she wanted to die, and preferred the river. She poured water into a basin and plunged her face into it again and again. The water had the chill of midwinter, and sent the blood from her brain; but she felt no cleaner. Still, her brain was no longer racing like a screw out of water, and she sat down to think. It was her trend of mind to face all questions with the least possible delay, and she looked at herself squarely.

“So,” she thought, “I am the daughter of Madge Sparhawk, after all. The horror of that night left me as I was made. Three years with the best woman the sun ever shone on only put the real me to sleep for a time. All my ideals were the vagaries of my imagination, a sort of unwritten book, of the nature of those that geniuses write, who spend their leisure hours in debauchery. I am no better than Rosita. I have not even the excuse of love—if I had—if it had been Him—I might perhaps—perhaps—look upon passion as a natural thing. Certainly it is not disagreeable,” and she laughed unpleasantly. “But I despised this man. He has not the brain of a calf nor the principle of a savage, and yet it is he that made me forget every ideal I ever cherished. If I met Him now, I would not insult him with the gift of myself....

“If Beverly Peele came in here now I verily believe that I should kiss him again. What—what is human nature made of? I have the blood of refined and enlightened ancestors in my veins—I know that. I have seen nothing of sexual sin that did not make me abhor it. Barring my mother, I had the best of influences in Monterey, and I knew the difference. I have—or had—a natural tendency toward all that was refined and uplifting. I was even sure I had a soul. My brain is better, and better furnished, than that of the average woman of my age. And yet, at the first touch, I crumble like an old corpse exposed to air. I am simply a body with a mental annex, and the one appears to be independent of the other.

“Is the world all vile?” she continued, resuming her restless walk. “This man attacked me as if he had no anticipation of a rebuff. And yet I am the friend of his sister, the adopted daughter of his mother’s cousin, and, he has every reason to think, of irreproachable life. If the world—his mother’s world—were not full of such women as he imagined me to be—he would never have taken so much for granted. He acted as if he thought me a fool, and I appear to be remarkably green. I am certainly learning. Oh—the brute! the brute!” And she flung herself on the bed and burst into violent weeping, which lasted until she was so exhausted that she fell asleep without disrobing.