izabeth," he said. "I want you to do it,
but--O God! how hard it's going to be!"

He held out his empty arms to her for a last embrace.

Elizabeth shook her head.

"Now's the time to begin, Hugh. 'Too,' Jack says. That tells the whole
story. I shall pollute his life also. I shall stand, not for what I think
I am, but for what I am, in that child's sight. I reasoned it out when you
were so ill, and I thought this was justifiable, and oh, Hugh! I've
dragged myself down in my own sight and I've dragged you down with me. It
isn't enough for me to seem to be right, I've got to _be_ right," she said
in a low tone, and with added shame because she had to keep her voice from
John's ears--John who slept upstairs and trusted them.

"It would be easier for you, Elizabeth, if I were not here," Hugh Noland
said sadly. "You could kill it out alone."

"But I am not alone. You are here, and have got to help me. Tell me that
you will--at any cost," she leaned forward, and in her eagerness raised
her voice till he pointed upward warningly.

When she had given his medicine without a touch of tenderness, he said to
her:

"You have bid my soul forth. I will give you that help, at any cost."

He made the last sentence stand out, but in her earnestness she did not
notice it or think of it again till it was significant. She went back to
her bed on the sitting-room couch and to the broken rest allowed to those
who watch with the sick.

CHAPTER XXIII

"AT ANY COST"

The old doctor delivered the message to Luther, and the next morning he
appeared at the sickroom door.

While he was talking to Hugh, Nathan Hornby came and was called into the
sickroom also. Elizabeth was too busy with her own work to think much
about this visit, and before it was finished Doctor Morgan was with her
questioning her about the night spent by her patient.

Nathan came to the kitchen while they were talking.

"I think I'll take that youngster home with me if you're goin' t' be alone
t' day," he announced.

Doctor Morgan looked relieved.

"That's about the kindest thing you could do for this girl," he said.
"Noland isn't as well as I'd like to have him, and she's up every hour in
the night. It takes a hired girl to run off at a time like this."

Elizabeth defended Hepsie at once. "Hepsie's pure gold. She waited a long
time for Hugh to get well. Please, Doctor, don't make any such remark as
that outside of this house or some one 'll tell her I