"It's confoundedly hard, I know." Bobby began to pace up and down helplessly. "You don't know how I hate to have you mixed up in all this, Eleanor," he said. "I'd give anything to have you out of it. Wouldn't it be better for you to go abroad for awhile?"
"And desert Elizabeth? My dear Bobby, you wouldn't have me do that?"
"Well, you can't help her, you know," he urged.
"I can show that I believe in her. And, thank Heaven! social position does count for something. It may help me to fight Elizabeth's battles."
"It doesn't count for much, unfortunately, before the law."
"Not theoretically, no," said his wife, sceptically. "But practically—it counts with every one and everywhere. By the way," she added, struck with a sudden idea, "what sort of man is the District Attorney? I might ask him to dinner." And she looked prepared to send the invitation on the spot.
"My dear Eleanor, I'm afraid it's too late for that now. The thing to do now, since matters have gone so far, is to prove Elizabeth's innocence, and for that, the first step is to prepare her, so that she won't be taken unawares. Her aunts too—they must be told, I suppose. Poor things, I believe it will kill them!"
"People don't die so easily. It would be more merciful, I sometimes think, if they did." She sat and thought for a moment. "I think I had better go there at once," she said, at last, nervously. "I couldn't sleep to-night with this hanging over my head."
And so, for the second time that day, she drove to the Van Vorsts' apartment, feeling that her unexpected appearance in itself must prepare them for some calamity. And indeed the telling proved easier than she feared. She saw Elizabeth alone, and sat holding the girl's hand, trying by many tender circumlocutions to break the force of the blow. But Elizabeth understood almost immediately.
"They think I sent the poison—is that it?" she said, going at once to the point which her friend was approaching so carefully. "Well, that isn't so strange. Sometimes I feel," she added, wearily, and putting her hand to her head, "as if I had done it myself. I think I—I might have done it."