, deep-rooted, strong, malignant. She saw that in the end she
would continue in her profession, but she believed that she could not go
on with it consistently, based as it was upon sympathy and love and
kindness, while a firm-seated, active hatred dwelt with her, harassing
her at every moment, and perverting each good impulse and each unselfish
desire. It was an ally of the very Enemy she would be called upon to
fight, a traitor that at any moment might open the gates to his
triumphant entry.

But was this his only ally; was this the only false and ugly invader
that had taken advantage of her shattered defence? Had the unwelcome
visitor entered her heart alone? Was there not a companion still more
wicked, more perverted, more insidious, more dangerous? For the first
time Lloyd knew what it meant to deceive.

It was supposed by her companions, and accepted by them as a matter of
course, that she had not left the bedside of her patient until after his
death. At first she had joyfully welcomed this mistake as her salvation,
the one happy coincidence that was to make her life possible, and for a
time had ceased to think about it. That phase of the incident was
closed. Matters would readjust themselves. In a few days' time the
incident would be forgotten. But she found that she herself could not
forget it, and that as days went on the idea of this passive, silent
deception she was obliged to maintain occurred to her oftener and
oftener. She remembered again how glibly and easily she had lied to her
friend upon the evening of her return. How was it that the lie had
flowed so smoothly from her lips? To her knowledge she had never
deliberately lied before. She would have supposed that, because of this
fact, falsehood would come difficult to her, that she would have
bungled, hesitated, stammered. But it was the reverse that had been the
case. The facility with which she had uttered the lie was what now began
to disturb and to alarm her. It argued some sudden collapse of her whole
system of morals, some fundamental disarrangement of the entire machine.

Abruptly she recoiled. Whither was she tending? If she supinely resigned
herself to the current of circumstance, where would she be carried? Yet
how was she to free herself from the current, how to face this new
situation that suddenly presented itself at a time when she had fancied
the real shock of battle and contention was spent and past?

How was she to go back now? How cou