In almost a gasp, her sister cried:
"Muriel! … Muriel!"
"Can you take her with you?" demanded Elinor.
Kathryn shook her head.
"No," she replied. "Of course not. I shall leave her here, with you."
Her sister shook her head.
"Do you see?" she queried. "Can you go to him, and live with him, as wife?" Kathryn made no answer. Again Elinor shook her head, gently. "Don't you understand," she asked. "It's compromise on compromise— hedging on hedging. Can't you see how impossible it all is? … how utterly impossible?"
Torn of anguish, of inability to solve the problems that God had laid before her, Kathryn turned beseeching eyes to her sister.
"But what shall I do, Nell?" she asked, beseechingly. "What can I do….
Wasn't it hard enough, even that way?"
Elinor replied, gently: