cheat and cozen the man I love." Then, after some moments' silence o' both sides, "Oh, if I were really Judith Godwin!"
"If you were she, you'd be in Barbary now, and have neither father nor lover; is that what you want?" says I, with some impatience.
"Bear with me," says she, with a humility as strange in her as these new-born scruples of conscience.
"You may be sure of this, my dear," says I, in a gentler tone, "if you were anything but what you are, Mr. Godwin would not marry you."
"Why, then, not tell him what I am? " asks she, boldly.
"That means that you would be to-morrow what you're not to-day."
"If he told me he had done wrong, I could forgive him, and love him none the less."
"Your conditions are not the same. He is a gentleman by birth, you but a player's daughter. Come, child, be reasonable. Ponder this matter but a moment justly, and you shall see that you have all to lose and nought to gain by yielding to this idle fancy. Is he lacking in affection, that you would seek to stimulate his love by this hazardous experiment?"
"Oh, no, no, no!" cries she.
"Would he be happier knowing all?" (She shakes her head.) "Happier if you force him to give you up and seek another wife?" (She starts as if flicked with a whip.) "Would you be happier stripped of your possessions, cast out of your house, and forced to fly from justice with your father?" (She looks at me in pale terror.) "Why, then, there's nothing to be won, and what's to lose? the love
