Eleanor leads Tombo away, and watches him run down the hill—he is clasping the gold locket safely in both hands.
Mrs. Blum has departed blessing Eleanor, and pouring such overwhelming gratitude into her ears that solitude is a welcome relief.
"Poor soul," she thinks. "Shall I ever come to that?"
A step is heard on the verandah, the rustle of a dress, and Elizabeth Kachin stands before her.
She is paler than of yore, her eyes a trifle softer. The hard lips part in greeting, she takes Eleanor by both hands.
"You are a good woman," she says, with an admiring glance. "I cannot tell you how high your great charity has placed you in my esteem and regard. To think you actually laid aside all your natural feelings of repulsion and harboured such a woman out of charity."
"Merely an act of plain humanity," replies Eleanor.
"Nevertheless, I could not do it, even to my own mother. To be in contact with what is sinful is abhorrent to me. Still, I am not blind to your great kindness and self-sacrifice. Tombo and I both wish to thank you."
Eleanor's heart swells at the words—to be thought good, noble, charitable. What a blessed thing it is! She realises how deeply she still values public opinion, which she has cast to the winds in her reckless love for Carol. Elizabeth, by her words of praise, endears herself to Eleanor, in spite of her late behaviour to the poor outcast. It is well to be looked up to and to be believed in. Then the galling thought creeps into her elated brain: