It was in the afternoon of the day that Maurice was to arrive,—­he had telegraphed that he would reach Mercer in the evening;—­that she had a sudden panic about Edith.  “She was here that night and saw me.  I know she laughed at me because I hadn’t any hat on!  She may—­suspect?  If she does, she’ll tell him!  What shall I do to stop her?” She couldn’t think of any way to stop her!  She couldn’t hold her thoughts steady enough to reach a decision.  First would come gladness of her own comfort and safety, and the warm, warm bed; then shame, that she had faltered and run away from a chance to do a great thing for Maurice; then terror that Edith would make her ridiculous to Maurice.  Then all these thoughts would whirl about, run backward:  First, terror of Edith! then shame! then comfort!  Suddenly the terror thought held fast with a question.  “Suppose I make her promise not to tell Maurice anything?  I think she would keep a promise....”  It would be dreadful to ask the favor of secrecy of Edith—­just as she had asked the same sort of favor of Lily—­but to seem silly to Maurice would be more dreadful than to ask a favor!  She held to this purpose of humiliating self-protection, long enough to ask Mrs. Houghton when Edith was coming down from Green Hill.

“Why, she’s here, now, in the house!” Edith’s mother said.

“Here?” Eleanor said, despairingly.  If Edith was here, then Maurice, when he came, would see her and she would tell him!  “She would make a funny story of it,” Eleanor thought; “I know her!  She would make him laugh.  I can’t bear it! ...  I would like to speak to Edith,” she told Mrs. Houghton, faintly.

Edith, summoned by her mother, stood for a rigid moment outside Eleanor’s door, trying to get herself in hand.  In these anxious days, Edith’s youth had been threatened by assailing waves of a remorse that at times would have engulfed it altogether, but for that unflinching reasonableness which made her the girl she was.  “It may be,” Edith had said to herself; “it may be that what I said to her in the garden made her so angry that she tried to kill herself; but why should it have made her angry?  I didn’t injure her.  Besides, she dragged it out of me!  I couldn’t lie.  She said, ‘You love him.’  I would not lie, and say I didn’t!  But what harm did it do her?” So she reasoned; but reason did not keep her from suffering.  “Did I drive her to it?” Edith said, over and over.  So when her mother told her Eleanor wanted to speak to her, she grew a little pale.  When she entered Eleanor’s room her heart was beating so hard she felt smothered, but she was perfectly matter of fact.  “Anything I can do for you, Eleanor?” she said.  She stood at the foot of the bed, holding on to the carved bed post.

Eleanor looked at her for a silent moment, then gathered herself together.  “Edith,” she said (she was very hoarse and spoke with difficulty), “I don’t want to bother Maurice about—­about my accident.  So I am going to ask you, please, not to refer to it to him.  Not to tell him anything about it. Anything. Promise me.”