The blow went home. Frances felt as if it had been directed against herself. She did not need to see the stricken look in Arthur’s eyes. She knew without seeing, and on the instant she acted, for further inaction was unedurable.
Before he could make any reply to the thrust, she was in the lists beside him.
“You are wrong!” she said, and her voice rang clear and triumphant before them all. “You are utterly wrong! I would!”
She turned to him quivering with the greatness of the moment to find his eyes upon her with that in them which thrilled her to the soul.
She stretched forth a trembling hand. “I would!” she repeated, and this time she spoke to him alone. “You know I would!”
He caught her hand and closely held it. “Yes, I know—I know!” he said. Then curtly to Oliver, “That’s enough for the present. Sit down and have some supper, you and Maggie too! We’ll discuss this thing in the morning. Frances, sit here!”
He pulled forward a chair and she sat beside him at the head of the table. But save for that one brief command he did not speak to her or look in her direction again.
No one else ventured to address a word to her. Only Mrs. Dermot leaned forward and gently pressed her hand.
CHAPTER XI
THE PERFECT GIFT
The thing was done. Frances stood alone in the old ivy-covered porch looking out into the faint starlight and asked herself how she had come to do it. It had been the impulse of the moment, and she well knew that if she had taken time to consider she would never have acted upon it. But a power that was infinitely greater than herself had urged her, and she had had no choice.