low state of consciousness, to be thus abrupt. The
better part of her realized this; saw how she was wreaking the revenge
of an old emotion. A reaction of generosity prompted her next words;
but she spoke with an effort.

"You may help if you want to. Uncle Edward must go to the ranch this
week--unless--don't you want to come here and stay in my spare room?"
It seemed to Eleanor that she had never made a harder sacrifice than
the one which she sealed with that invitation.

This, too, brought Kate out of her impersonation. Her whole figure
straightened for a second, and--

"Oh, might I?" she said.

"I should be very glad. Will you come up to see him--one may look in
at the door. He is in Uncle Edward's spare chamber."

As they threaded the involved halls of that rambling dwelling, Kate
hurried on ahead. Eleanor, from the rear, threw out a word or two by
way of direction. At the door, opened to get air of a dull and heavy
morning, they peered into the grim order of the sick room. The nurse
had already stripped it to hospital equipment. His face, refined
almost into beauty by pain and low-running blood, lay tilted to one
side as he slept. The nurse touched her lips. Eleanor nodded. The
nurse turned back toward her patient. Eleanor dared look at Kate.

Her color had changed from pale, back to the pink of life; now it was
turning pale again. She noticed neither Eleanor nor the nurse; she
stood as one in a universe unpeopled save by herself and another.
Once, her two arms quivered with an involuntary outward motion, and
once she swayed against the lintel.

And Eleanor, watching her through this wordless passage, gathered all
the currents that had been running through her will into an
indeterminate determination. In that moment she realized the full
bitterness of a renunciation that does not mean renouncing a wholly
dear and desired thing, but does mean renouncing the beloved thing
which one is better without.

Kate turned at length. Eleanor, as their eyes met, could read in her
face and body the change as the actress took command once more. Kate
flew at once to her hollow conventional phrases.

"The poor, poor boy!" she said. "Oh, we must all help!"

Eleanor turned away with the feeling that this made it harder for her
to perform her renunciation--if real renunciation it were.

The day brought too much work, activity, purely material anxiety, for
a great deal of thought. They had cut off the telephone in the mai