"You have no right to this approbation. Elizabeth is a just woman, clothed in that pitiless virtue which tramples down the weak. You are deceiving her and accepting what is not your due. You may be foolish, wild, mistaken, Eleanor; you may have ruined your husband and yourself; but you are not a hypocrite."
She realises in a moment all it will cost her to lose her friend's respect, to see the look of scorn in Elizabeth's eye, and watch her turn away as from one polluted.
For the moment it seems too hard, but Eleanor pulls herself together and sets her teeth.
She walks across to the door with a steady step, her slim young figure drawn up to its full height, her head tossed back, her cheeks aflame.
Elizabeth watches in mute surprise. Then Eleanor breaks the silence, flings open the door, and cries with outstretched hand pointing to the hill:
"Go! I, too, am a wicked woman!"
CHAPTER XIX.
THE IDEAL! DIM VANITIES OF DREAMS BY NIGHT.
From the moment those fatal words were uttered: "Go! I, too, am a wicked woman!" the scales fall from Elizabeth's eyes.