So she was very peaceful until, the next day, she heard Edith’s voice in the hall, then she frowned.  “She’s here!  In the house with him!  Don’t let her come in,” she told Maurice; “she takes my breath.”  But, somehow, she couldn’t help thinking of Edith....  “That morning in the garden she cried,” Eleanor thought.  It was strange to think of tears in those clear, careless eyes.  “I never supposed she could cry.  I’ve cried a good deal.  Men don’t like tears.”  And there had been tears in Edith’s eyes when she came in and sat on the bed and said she was “unhappy....”  “She believed,” Eleanor meditated, her own eyes closed, “that it was because of her that I went out to the river.”  She was faintly sorry that Edith should reproach herself.  “I didn’t do it because she made me angry; I did it to make Maurice happy.  I almost wish she knew that.”  Perhaps it was this vague regret that made her remember Edith’s assertion that she would do “anything on earth” to keep Maurice from marrying Lily.  “But that’s the only way he can be sure of getting Jacky,” Eleanor argued to herself, her mind clearing into helpless perplexity—­“and it’s the only way to keep him from Edith.  But I wish Lily wasn’t so vulgar.  Maurice won’t like living with her.”  Suddenly she said, “Maurice, do send the nurse out of the room.  I want to tell you something, darling.”  She was very hoarse.

“Better not talk, dear,” he said, anxiously.

She smiled and shook her head.  “I just want to tell you:  I don’t mind not getting well, because then you’ll marry Lily.”

“Eleanor!  Don’t—­don’t—­”

“And you can give little Jacky the kind of home he ought to have.”

She drowsed.  Maurice sat beside her with his face buried in his hands.  When she awoke, at dusk, she lay peacefully watching the firelight flickering on the ceiling, and, thinking—­thinking.  Then, into her peace, broke again the memory of Edith’s distress.  “Perhaps I ought to tell her that I went to the river for Maurice’s sake? Not because I was angry at her.”  She thought of Edith’s tears, and said, “Poor Edith—­” And when she said that a strange thing happened:  pity, like a soft breath, blew out the vehement flame.  It is always so; pity and jealousy are never together....

The next morning she remembered her words about Jacky—­“the kind of home he ought to have”—­and again uneasiness as to the kind of “home” it would be for Maurice rose in her mind.  Her head whirled with worry.  “It won’t be pleasant for him to live with her, even if she can cook.  He loves that chocolate cake; but he couldn’t bear her grammar.  Edith said I was ‘unkind’ to him.  Am I?  I suppose she thought he’d be happier with her?  Would he? She can make that cake, too.  Yes; he would be happier with her than with Lily;—­and Jacky would call her ‘Mother,"’ Then she forgot Edith.

After a while she said:  “Maurice, can’t I see Jacky?  Go get him!  And give Lily the car fare.”