Rachel took her hands again and held them steadily. "Eva, I think you
love your husband."
Eva made no answer, but she turned her face away with a little,
half-stifled sob. "It wouldn't make any difference now! I've no one but
you left to love me, Rachel, and I've lied about you and ruined your
life!"
"Not even that must keep you silent, Eva; the truth is God's, you'll
have to speak it sooner or later."
"I'm not like you, Rachel, I'm not like that; I feel as if I'd been too
wicked for God to have anything to do with me."
"You poor child!" Rachel forgot the misery that had made her recoil
at first from the confession, and again her sister's weakness appealed
to her strength. "You've got to go to God first, Eva, and afterwards
you've got to tell Johnstone."
Eva sat staring at the wall, her face pale and small as a child's, her
eyes wide with misery. "Rachel, I can't--I can't see the scorn grow in
his eyes, I can't!"
"You'll never be happy until you do; it's just that--the
falsehood--that hurts you."
"You mean against you?"
"Never mind me; I can bear it, I can even forgive you. I mean the
falsehood against your husband."
Eva looked at her wildly. "Rachel, I'll do it if it will help you, if
you can get a divorce."
Rachel shook her head. "I've always thought marriage too sacred to
break so lightly. It hurt most to have taken the vows as I did, but it
isn't only that. If I got it, Eva, all that I've done, all that I've
suffered, would go for nothing, for it would publish the scandal; I
couldn't save your good name."
Eva gazed at her with growing terror, her lips shaking. "Oh, Rachel,
how awful! You're caught in a trap, and I did it!"
"I shan't feel that it's all in vain, I shan't even count the suffering
too much, if it means that I've saved you, Eva, if I've brought you
back to your husband."
Eva flung herself into her arms with a sob. "I'm not worth saving," she
cried, "and I've ruined your life!"