Van Berg, with all my faults I am at least
a woman. Please help me home. I'm so weak and weary that I'm
almost ready to faint."
He seized her hand and faltered hoarsely, "Miss Mayhew, you have
not--you have not taken that drug---"
She was so vividly conscious of her own dark secret, and so
impressed by his power to discover all the evil in her nature, that
she replied in a low tone,
"Hush. I understand you. Not yet."
"Thank God!" he ejaculated, with such a deep sigh of relief that
she looked at him in surprise. The he drew her hand within his arm,
and weary as she was, she could not help noting that it trembled
as if he had an ague.
For a few moments they walked on without speaking. Then the artist
addressed her.
"Miss Mayhew---"
"Mr. Van Berg," she said, hastily interrupting him. "Spare me
to-night. I'm too weary even to think."
Again they walked on in silence, but his agitation was evidently
increasing.
"Let me enter by that side door, please," she said as they approached
the hotel.
"Miss Mayhew," he began in a low, hurried tone, "I must speak. You
said you were a woman. As such I appeal to you. A woman may, at
times, have no pity on herself, but it rarely happens that she is
pitiless towards others, and it is said that she is often the most
generous and merciful towards those who have wronged her.
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