Her room was at the back of the house, and the sun, finding some chink between the houses behind the Thorne house, crept in under the shades and began moving slowly across the plain, dark, velvet carpet. It had time to move some distance while she sat there immovable, unaware of her surroundings.
Gradually she came to see that she must choose between the two. Either she must give up forever the idea of revenging herself on O'Bannon or she must give up all the peace and wisdom that she had so painfully learned—she had almost lost it already, and she had not been twenty-four hours out of prison.
An hour later Eleanor was wakened by the opening of her door. Lydia was standing at the foot of her bed, grasping the edge of it in her two white hands. It was Eleanor's first good look at her in the light of day. She was startled by Lydia's beauty—a kind of beauty she had never had before. No one could now have likened her to a picture by Cabanel of the Star of the Harem. Everything sleek and hard and smooth had gone. She looked more like the picture of some ravaged, pale Spanish saint, still so young that the inner struggle had molded without lining her face. She stood staring at Eleanor, her dark hair standing out about her face, and her pale dressing gown defining the beautiful line of her shoulders, as she raised them, pressing her hands down on the foot of the bed.
"Well, my dear, good morning," was Eleanor's greeting, though she was not unaware that something emotional was in the air.
"Eleanor," began the other, her enormous tragic eyes fixed now, not on her friend's, but on a spot on the pillow about five inches away, "there is something I want to say to you." The best agreement was silence, and Lydia went on, "I want you never to talk to me about that man—your friend—I mean O'Bannon."
"Talk of him!" exclaimed Eleanor, her first thought being, "Am I always talking of him?"
"I don't want to hear of him or think of him or speak of him."
This time Eleanor's hesitation was not entirely acquiescent.
"I can understand," she said, "that you might not want to see him, but to speak of him——I have been thinking, Lydia, that that is one of the subjects that you and I ought to talk over—to talk out."
"No, no!" returned Lydia quickly, and Eleanor saw with surprise that it was only by leaning on her hands that she kept them from trembling. "I can't explain it to you—I don't want to go into it—but I don't want to remember that he exists. If you would just accept it as a fact, and tell other people—Benny and Bobby. If you would do that for me, Eleanor——"