rtheless, I could not do it, even to my own mother. To be in
contact with what is sinful is abhorrent to me. Still, I am not blind
to your great kindness and self-sacrifice. Tombo and I both wish to
thank you."

Eleanor's heart swells at the words--to be thought good, noble,
charitable. What a blessed thing it is! She realises how deeply she
still values public opinion, which she has cast to the winds in her
reckless love for Carol. Elizabeth, by her words of praise, endears
herself to Eleanor, in spite of her late behaviour to the poor outcast.
It is well to be looked up to and to be believed in. Then the galling
thought creeps into her elated brain:

"You have no right to this approbation. Elizabeth is a just woman,
clothed in that pitiless virtue which tramples down the weak. You are
deceiving her and accepting what is not your due. You may be foolish,
wild, mistaken, Eleanor; you may have ruined your husband and yourself;
but you are _not_ a hypocrite."

She realises in a moment all it will cost her to lose her friend's
respect, to see the look of scorn in Elizabeth's eye, and watch her
turn away as from one polluted.

For the moment it seems too hard, but Eleanor pulls herself together
and sets her teeth.

She walks across to the door with a steady step, her slim young figure
drawn up to its full height, her head tossed back, her cheeks aflame.

Elizabeth watches in mute surprise. Then Eleanor breaks the silence,
flings open the door, and cries with outstretched hand pointing to the
hill:

"_Go_! I, too, am a wicked woman!"

CHAPTER XIX.

THE IDEAL! DIM VANITIES OF DREAMS BY NIGHT.

From the moment those fatal words were uttered: "Go! I, too, am a
wicked woman!" the scales fall from Elizabeth's eyes.

How natural it seems to her now, the so-called Mrs. Quinton's act of
sympathy.

But what she does not know, nor can ever guess, is the supreme effort
that confession costs Eleanor. It is wrung from her lips through sheer
force of will, and as Mrs. Kachin obeys the command, and with head held
proudly aloft, passes out into the blinding sunlight, Eleanor receives
her first slight since leaving England.

The cup is bitter, it takes away her breath. She stands in the doorway
gasping, blinded by the glaring light of day. A victim at the shrine
of truth, self condemned, self accused.

It is thus that Carol finds her, gazing tragically at the departing
figure of Elizabeth Kachin.