Beatrice stopped, turned round, and looked at Catherine.
"Kitty, I can't deceive you. I—love you, but I am not going to be what—what you suppose."
"Then there is something wrong!" exclaimed Catherine. "I feared it from my mother's face when I saw her an hour ago. Now I am sure. Bee, are you going to fail us at the last moment? Oh, Beatrice, you have made him so nice, and we have all been so happy, and mother has said more than once to me, 'Beatrice Meadowsweet has saved us,' and now, just at the very last, just at the very end, are you going to be a coward—a deserter?"
"No," said Beatrice. "I won't desert you. I won't fail you. It is given to me to save your brother Loftus, to really save him. Don't be frightened, Kitty. I have a hard task to go through. I have to say some things to your mother which will try her. Yes, I know they will try her much, but I am doing right, and you must help me, and be brave. Yes, you must be brave because you know I am doing right."
"I will trust you, Beatrice," said Catherine. Her dark eyes shone, over the pallor of her face there came a glow. She opened the door of her mother's room.
"Here is Beatrice, mother. And may I—may I—stay too?"
"No, Kate, you are unreasonable. What a long time you have kept Beatrice. She has been in the house for ten minutes. I heard you two gossiping in the corridor. Girls are unreasonable, and they don't understand that the impatience of the old is the worst impatience of all. Go, Kate."
Catherine's eyes sought her friend's. They seemed to say mutely:
"Be good to her, Beatrice, she is my mother."
Then she closed the door behind the two.