"Feel? What haven't I felt since that day he came here?" There had been a break in her voice, but she went quietly on. "I can't make you know, dear. You've torn me—it will hurt to the end. Can you understand that in a terrible, an unspeakable way, my Kitty is still alive, is near me, and yet is not to be known? But you can't understand it. You've never had a child."
"Ah! but I've been one. I know what he would feel."
"Please, dear!" She put up a hand in protest. "As if I don't feel his hurt and Kitty's as well as mine. I shall be ground between the two every day of my life. Do you think my old arms didn't cry out to be around the mother in him? But think if I had yielded! Picture his own suffering—his own shame. Can you see us meeting, our eyes falling? Even for his own sake, he must never know."
"Isn't there a way, Aunt Kitty? Some way? He's worth finding a way for." She leaned over to stroke the other's hand.
"No way, my girl. Be the world a moment, be cool. He's a nameless thing. You might know him, but nothing more. Could he make a life? Could a woman—come, face it without prejudice—could you see your own sister marry him?" Mrs. Laithe looked blank.
"You see how impossible it is. You, yourself, could you stand before the world with him? Could you face the shame?"
The younger woman dropped the hand she held and turned away. The elder regarded her shrewdly.
"There—you see how impossible——"
But the other faced her suddenly, clear-eyed and defiant, her head back.
"Eleanor!" It was a cry of consternation that was yet softened by tenderness, an amazed but comprehending tenderness, for the face of the younger woman was incarnadined, flagrantly, splendidly.