Elinor began, slowly:
"Tom, Kate and I have been talking, seriously. I want her to leave John Schuyler—legally leave him—leave him for all time. It's the only fair— the only right—thing to do. I'm not going to argue. It is all sufficiently plain. She can't live with him; and yet, as long as she is his wife, she has no right to be away from him. And she can never go to him."
"She wants your opinion, Tom," she went on. "She's always respected your judgment more than mine—more than that of anyone save the man upon whom she may never depend again."
Kathryn had wandered to where the white blooms clustered thickest. She was thinking—thinking deeply, bitterly. Elinor drew closer to Blake.
"I like you, Tom," she said, softly. "You're a good man—a decent man—a clean man—and they're mighty scarce these days…. All that Kate may have owed to John Schuyler, she long since paid to the last sad penny…. All your life you have been paying the things that you did not owe…. There is happiness, somewhere; a happiness that can be found." She thrust out her hand. "Tell her what to do," she said. "Tell her the right thing to do—the thing that should be done." And she turned on her heel, and went away.
For a long, long time Blake stood motionless. Of that which was going on within his soul, no one might know. The expression of his face remained the same, and of his body. Only his hands clenched, and unclenched, and clenched again. It was a difficult position in which he found himself— how difficult only he might know. There lay before him a vast, spreading vista of golden possibility—a possibility of which he had never dared to think—even to dream. Possibly it were but a possibility—and yet surely it was that. A word from him would so make it. That he knew. On the other hand—
For yet a longer time, he stood, hands clenching, unclenching, clenching…. Slowly he went to where the woman he loved stood, slender white fingers plucking nervously at bending blossoms of fragrant whiteness.
She turned, a little. Violet eyes slowly lifted…. He looked into their depths…. His hands clenched, and unclenched more swiftly.
"Kate," he said, at length, slowly, very slowly, "do you want me to tell you what to do?"
She answered, with infinite weariness: