"Then don't ask me to go to him now."
The counter-stroke was unanswerable. Evelyn made a genuine attempt to still the uncontrolled quivering of her body, and actually got upon her feet. But abandonment to misery had so shaken her that, even as Honor put out a steadying hand, she fell back among her pillows with a choking sob.
"It's no use," she moaned. "Go, Honor—go now; and say I—I'm coming."
The girl set her teeth hard. A strange light gleamed in the blue of her eyes. She moved across to the washing-stand and poured out a stiff dose of sal volatile.
"Here, Evelyn," she said, all the tenderness gone from her voice, "drink this at once. Then get up as soon as you can, and make yourself presentable. I shall not be gone many minutes, and you must be ready to go to him the instant I come back."
Evelyn choked and spluttered over the burning mixture.
"Oh, thank you, Honor, thank you. Only—don't look so angry about it, please."
"I am angry—I am bitterly angry," Honor answered with sudden vehemence, and went quickly from the room.
Once outside, she paused; her whole soul uplifted in a wordless prayer for strength and self-control. It seemed to her that Evelyn's reception of Theo went far to make her own departure a matter of imperative necessity, cruelly hard though it was to risk being misjudged at such a crisis.