Sophia was touched by the story and touched nearly also by the heart of the man who told it, for in such telling the hearts of speaker and listener beat against one another through finer medium than that which we call space.  But just because she was touched it was characteristic in her to find a point that she could assail.

“I don’t see that a woman is specially beholden to a man because he loves her against her will.”

“Do you mean to say”—­fiercely—­“that she was not beholden to him because he taught her everything she knew, and was willing to work to support her?”

“Yes, certainly, she was under obligation for all his kindness, but his being in love with her—­that is different.”

But Alec Trenholme, like many people, could not see a fine point in the heat of discussion.  Afterwards, on reflection he saw what she had meant, but now he only acted in the most unreasonable of ways.

“Well, I don’t see it as you do,” he said; and then, the picture of suppressed indignation, he took up the pail to go inside and dispose of it.

“I don’t know how it can all be,” said Sophia considering, “but I’m sure there’s a great deal of good in her.”

At this, further silence, even out of deference to her, seemed to him inadequate.  “I don’t pretend to know how it can be; how she got here, or what she has been doing here, dressed in silk finery, or what she may have been masquerading with matches in the old house over there for.  All I know is, a girl who treated Bates as she did—­”

“No, you don’t know any of these things.  You have only heard one side of the story.  It is not fair to judge.”

“She has ruined his life, done as good as killed him.  Why should you take her part?”

“Because there are always two sides to everything.  I don’t know much of her story, but I have heard some of it, and it didn’t sound like what you have said.  As to her being in the Harmon house—­” Sophia stopped.

“Do you mean to say,” asked Alec, “that she has been living here all the time quite openly?”

“Yes—­that is, she has given a false name, it seems, but, Mr. Trenholme—­”

“If she has lied about her name, depend upon it she has lied about everything else.  I wouldn’t want you to go within ten feet of her.”

Although the fallacy of such argument as Alec’s too often remains undetected when no stubborn fact arises to support justice, Sophia, with her knowledge of Eliza, could not fail to see the absurdity of it.  Her mind was dismayed at the thought of what the girl had apparently done and concealed, but nothing could make her doubt that the Eliza she knew was different from the Sissy Cameron he was depicting.  She did not doubt, either, that if anything would bring out all the worst in her and make her a thousand times more unkind to Bates, it would be the attack Alec Trenholme meditated.  She decided that she ought herself to act as go-between.  She remembered