"If I'm there to do them, it will at least prevent this continual friction and strain."
"But you, my dear—you?"
"It doesn't matter about me." She was pensive over it. "If I solve his problem——"
"It will be very hard for you."
"I can bear anything if he's happy."
Frances smiled sadly. She had had worse things than that to bear.
"Of course," she said, "if you know—if you're sure that you care—in that way——"
"I didn't know until the other day, when I came back. It's only when you give up everything that you really know."
Frances was silent. If any woman knew, she knew. She had given up her husband to another woman. For his happiness she had given the woman her own name and her own place, when she might have shamed her by refusing the divorce he asked for.
"It wouldn't have been right for me to come back," said Gertrude, "if I hadn't been certain in my own heart that I can lift this feeling, and make it pure." Her voice thickened slightly. "It is pure. I think it always was. Why should I be ashamed of it? If there's anything spiritual in me, it's that."