t seemed absurd to be here in the dampness of the March evening; but
she couldn't go home and get into any discussion with him; she might
burst out again about Edith!--which always made him angry. She wished
that she had not told him that Edith was in love with him. "It ought to
disgust him, but it might flatter him!" And she oughtn't to have said
that other thing; she oughtn't to have accused him of caring for Edith.
"Of course he doesn't. And it was a horrid thing to say. I was angry,
because I was jealous; but it wasn't true. I wish I hadn't said it. I'll
write to him, and ask him to forgive me." But the other thing _was_
true: "I saw it in her eyes! She loves him. But I oughtn't to have put
the idea into his head!"

The more she thought of what she had put into Maurice's head, the more
uneasy she became. Oh, if she only had Jacky! Then, Edith could be as
brazen as she pleased, and Maurice would never notice her! "Of course he
doesn't love her; I'm certain of _that_!" she said again and
again,--and all her schemes, wise and foolish, for getting possession
of the boy, began to crowd into her mind.

Then an idea came to her which fairly took her breath away! A perfectly
wild idea, which she dared not stop to analyze: suppose, instead of
sitting here in the cold, she should go, now, boldly, to Lily, and ask
for Jacky? "I believe _I_ could persuade her to give him to us! She
wouldn't do it for Maurice, but she might for me!"

She got on her feet with a spring! Her spiritual energy was like her
physical energy that night on the mountain. Again she was
lifting--lifting! This time it was the weight of a Love which might die!
She was dragging it, carrying it! her very soul straining under her
purpose of keeping it alive by the touch of a child's hand! ... Why not
go and see Lily _now_? "She'll have finished her supper by the time I
get to her house; it's at the very end of Maple Street!" If Lily
consented, Eleanor might even get back to her own house in time to see
Maurice, and tell him what she had accomplished before he started for
his train! But she would have to hurry....

She actually ran out of the park toward the street; then stood for an
endless five minutes, waiting for the Medfield car. "Perhaps I can make
her let me bring Jacky home with me!" she said--which showed to what
heights beyond common sense she had risen.

At the little house on Maple Street she rang the bell, though she had a
crazy impulse to bang