He bent toward her an embracing look. It promised her a great deal: comprehension, sympathy, almost a kind of love.
"What shall you do?" he asked.
Electra choked a little. Her throat hurt her, not at the loss of what she was going to relinquish, but at the greatness of sacrifice with somebody by to take cognizance of the act. He would not, like Madam Fulton, call her a fool. He might even see where the action placed her, on ground he also had a right to, from other deeds as noble.
"I supposed I had inherited my brother's property," she said, in a low and penetrating voice. "I shall make it over to her."
MacLeod put out his hand, and she laid hers within it. When he spoke, it was with a moved restraint.
"That is a good deal to do."
"It is incumbent on me—ethically." At that instant she had a throb of high triumph in remembering that he, at least, would not gird at her choice of terms.
"It is what you would do," he said warmly. "It is exactly what you would do."
"I cannot do otherwise."
They seemed to be engaged in antiphonal praises of abstract right. It gave Electra a solemn satisfaction. She could hardly leave the subject. "I wish to do everything in my power," she announced. "I cannot ask her to live here, because I may not be here long myself."