Mrs Conolly, watching her with an increasing thoughtfulness, divined some deeper complication beneath her unusual insistence on the wrong point of view; and awaited the sure revelation that would come when it would come.
"You see, don't you," Honor concluded, in a beseeching tone, "that it is not easy to make out what is really best, what is right to be done? And Evelyn's uncertainty makes things still more difficult. One moment I feel almost sure she would 'find herself' if I were not always at her elbow; and the next I feel as if it would be criminal to leave her unsupported for five minutes at a time like this."
"That last comes nearer the truth than anything you have said yet," was Mrs Jim's unhesitating verdict. "Frankly, Honor, I agree with Dr Mackay; and I must really plead with you to leave off splitting straws about your 'Evelyn,' and to think of Captain Desmond—and Captain Desmond only. Surely you care more for him, and for what comes to him, than your line of argument seems to imply?"
Honor drew herself up as if she had been struck. The appeal was so unlooked for, the implication so unendurable, that for an instant she lost her balance. A slow colour crept into her cheeks, a colour drawn from the deepest wells of feeling; and while she stood blankly wondering how she might best remedy her mistake, Mrs Conolly's voice again came to her ears.
"Indeed, my child, you spoke truth just now," she said slowly, a fresh significance in her tone. "It must be very hard for you to make out what is right."
Honor threw up her head with a gesture of defiance.
"Why should you suddenly say that?" she demanded, almost angrily. But the instant her eyes met those of her friend the unnameable truth flashed between them clear as speech and with a stifled sound Honor hid her face in her hands.
Followed a tense silence; then Mrs Conolly came to her and put an arm round her. But the girl stiffened under the touch of sympathy implying mutual knowledge of that which belonged only to herself and God.
"How could I dream that you would guess?" she murmured, without uncovering her face—"that you would even imagine such a thing to be possible?"