her now, yet, for all that, she recoiled
instinctively from meeting him again. Not only must she meet him, but
she must be with him day after day, hour after hour, at his very side,
in all the intimacy that the sick-room involved. On the other hand, how
could she decline this case? The staff might condone one apparent and
inexplicable defection; another would certainly not be overlooked. But
was not this new situation a happy and unlooked-for opportunity to
vindicate her impaired prestige in the eyes of her companions? Lloyd
made up her mind upon the instant. She rose.

"I shall take the case," she said.

She was not a little surprised at herself. Hardly an instant had she
hesitated. On that other occasion when she had believed it right to make
confession to her associates it had been hard--at times almost
impossible--for her to do her duty as she saw and understood it. This
new complication was scarcely less difficult, but once having attained
the fine, moral rigour that had carried her through her former ordeal,
it became easy now to do right under all or any circumstances, however
adverse. If she had failed then, she certainly would have failed now.
That she had succeeded then made it all the easier to succeed now. Dimly
Lloyd commenced to understand that the mastery of self, the steady, firm
control of natural, intuitive impulses, selfish because natural, was a
progression. Each victory not only gained the immediate end in view, but
braced the mind and increased the force of will for the next shock, the
next struggle. She had imagined and had told herself that Bennett had
broken her strength for good. But was it really so? Had not defeat in
that case been only temporary? Was she not slowly getting back her
strength by an unflinching adherence to the simple, fundamental
principles of right, and duty, and truth? Was not the struggle with
one's self the greatest fight of all, greater, far greater, than had
been the conflict between Bennett's will and her own?

Within the hour she found herself once again on her way to Medford. How
much had happened, through what changes had she passed since the
occasion of her first journey; and Bennett, how he, too, changed; how
different he had come to stand in her estimation! Once the thought that
he was in danger had been a constant terror to her, and haunted her days
and lurked at her side through many a waking night. Was it possible that
now his life or death was no more to he