"I have been carefully considering your affairs, my dear, and, in the first place, you are to do nothing for the next six months but get well. I shall insist upon looking after you. You promised me, remember." She paused as though she half expected to encounter opposition to this project, and, though her ward revealed no insubordination, she added the argument which she held in reserve: "For, having deprived you by its counsel of the means of support, it is the Church's duty, and my privilege as a disciple of the Church's cause, to watch over you until you are able to provide for yourself. At the end of the six months, when your eyes are strong again, I wish you to become my private secretary."
On the way from her house she had pictured to herself the astonishment and delight which such an unexpected and splendid proposition must necessarily inspire, and she could not refrain from stealing a sidelong glance at Constance in order to observe the effect it would have on her.
"Your private secretary?"
Mrs. Wilson felt rewarded by the incredulous bewilderment conveyed by the interrogatory, and hastened to explain her benefaction. "It seems almost the interposition of Providence in your behalf," she added. "Last evening—and I was thinking of your noble resolution at the time—my secretary came in to inform me that she was engaged to be married, and to ask me to be on the lookout for someone else. 'The very place for Constance Stuart,' I said to myself at once. 'What could suit her better? And what an admirable arrangement it will be for me!' For, after refusing Mr. Perry's offer, I take for granted that, even when your eyesight is restored, the continuance of your present business relations would be out of the question."
"Oh, yes; entirely so," answered Constance with rueful promptness. "I could not continue in his employment; we should both be unhappy." She was making a confession of what she had been saying to herself all the morning.
"Exactly." Mrs. Wilson beamed over the success of her divination.
"Then we will consider it settled. And I wish to tell you besides that I shall take it upon myself to see that your boy's artistic gift is given full opportunity for expression, and your daughter thoroughly educated. Your salary, I mean, will be sufficient to enable you to give them proper advantages, for I can see that you will be very useful to me."
She was determined to make plain that virtue in this case was to be its own reward, and that the material losses in the wake of renunciation were rapidly being eliminated. At the same time she wished to conceal a too obviously eleemosynary intent.
"I don't see how anything could be nicer for me. And if you think that I should suit—that I could perform the duties properly—I shall be thankful for the position," answered poor Constance.
She had passed another sleepless night. Fixed as was her conviction that separation from her lover was inevitable, she felt deeply sorry for him if not for herself, and dreaded the impending final interview between them. Despite her spiritual exaltation the consciousness that she was letting slip a great chance for her children still haunted her, in that the future by comparison seemed vague and forbidding. For it had been clear to her from the moment of her decision that under no consideration could she remain in Gordon's office. Therefore, though doubtless her friends would help her, the struggle for a livelihood must be begun again.