"Rachel, I can't bear it, it's too much—and I did it—I did it all!"
Poor Rachel turned and went back to the table and began mechanically to arrange and rearrange the roses. "It's no use to talk of it, Eva; it's over and done with now!"
"No, it isn't, it can't be! You've got to face it and so have I—" Her voice broke with self-pity, but her grief for Rachel was quite as sincere. She looked at her in anguish—"You must hate me!"
"Do you think hate made me do it?"
"No, you were an angel, but you're human; you must hate me now!"
"No, I don't hate you, but—sometimes—I've been very angry with you, Eva. God knows I wish you'd never done it!"
"You've every right to hate me," the penitent lamented. "I—I lied about you to save myself."
Rachel could endure no more; she covered her ears with her hands. "Oh, Eva, please go away, let me be; I can't stand it!"
Eva looked at her a moment in silence and then ran out of the house. She went home blindly, not feeling the heat, and following the shade of the woodpath by instinct. Before her went the anguished face of Rachel; she knew at last that she had ruined her sister's life, she had lost all, and gained nothing. She had set out gayly on the Way of the Transgressors; with bleeding feet she was coming slowly and painfully back from the Way.
Astry was alone in the library when his wife entered it an hour later and he rose and put down his book. Something in her face warned him that a climax had been reached. Eva flung her big white hat on the table and sank into a chair.