future which she was fearing. Without looking up,
she drew her hand across her eyes. "I don't know why I am telling you
all this. I have never told any one before; not even my mother."

Unflinchingly Mrs. MacGregor turned to Amy.

"I have no doubt that you have done your duty so far as you have seen
it; but here is the point. Are you willing to make further sacrifices,
from your standpoint, the supreme sacrifice?"

Amy's mind had been overstrained in an effort to follow even the small
part of Mrs. MacGregor's words that was at all intelligible to her;
there was a suggestion of petulance in her reply.

"There is no need of any more sacrifice. Just see." She pointed through
the roses to the dark green orange trees full of golden fruit which
covered the hillside below them. "Elijah has no need to do more. He has
enough for us all now. Even if he should leave the Water Company, he
would have enough. When that is done, he will come home to me and I
shall have him all to myself; I and the children."

"Elijah's work is only begun. What he has done, is only a preparation
for the work that is to be done, that he alone can do. Nothing must
stand in his way, not even wife and children."

Amy answered passionately.

"He has done enough!"

Mrs. MacGregor's eyes were cold and merciless as those of a snake
watching its victim. She thought long before speaking. She was conscious
that there was danger in handling for one's own purposes a mind so
feeble and hesitating as Amy's, but she must make the attempt. Should
she rest content with having instilled the subtle poison in Amy's mind,
leaving it to work slowly to a doubtful end? Could she be sure that it
would do its work? On the other hand, to one of Amy's mental caliber,
would the plain, brutal statement, stripped of ambiguity, be more than a
suggestion? In this latter course there lay the danger that Amy would
grasp the full import of her words and that in the mental agony that
would surely follow, she would go to Elijah at once. Would she go to
Elijah? Mrs. MacGregor felt sure that she would not. Weak as Amy was,
she would intuitively feel the hopelessness of an appeal to him. Already
she was vaguely conscious that her hold upon him was slight, how slight
she would not dare to put to the test. She would not openly acknowledge
this fear to herself, much less to others, least of all to Elijah. She
had a fixed purpose in her mind, to fit herself to take Helen's place
and upon