"You are very wonderful, and very—terrible, Honor," she said. "I never imagined you could be as terrible as that." Then her lips quivered, and she caught at the girl's skirt, drawing her nearer. "You must go on helping me, or everything will go to pieces."
"So long as you remain a loyal wife to—Theo, I cannot choose but do so, with all my heart."
She knelt down again now; and Evelyn, flinging both arms round her neck, broke into a passion of weeping.
"I think I was half mad," she moaned through her tears, clinging to Honor as a drowning woman clings to a spar. "And I am dreadfully frightened still. But I will do whatever you tell me. I will try to be a loyal wife, even if——"
"We won't think of that at all," Honor interposed hastily. "It cannot—it shall not happen!"
But Evelyn's tears flowed on unchecked. The fire of Honor's just anger had melted the morsel of ice in her heart; and in a very short time she had cried herself to sleep.
Then Honor gently unlocked the clinging fingers, and went straight to Frank Olliver's room.