* * * * *

Lloyd returned to Bannister toward the end of the week.  How long she would remain she did not know, but for the present the association of the other nurses was more than she was able to bear.  Later, when the affair had become something of an old story, she would return, resuming her work as though nothing had happened.

Hattie met her at the railway station with the phaeton and the ponies.  She was radiant with delight at the prospect of having Lloyd all to herself for an indefinite period of time.

“And you didn’t get sick, after all?” she exclaimed, clasping her hands.  “Was your patient as sick as I was?  Weren’t his parents glad that you made him well again?”

Lloyd put her hand over the little girl’s mouth.

“Let us not talk any ‘shop,’ Hattie,” she said, trying to smile.

But on the morning after her arrival Lloyd woke in her own white room of the old farmhouse, abruptly conscious of some subtle change that had occurred to her overnight.  For the first time since the scene in the breakfast-room at Medford she was aware of a certain calmness that had come to her.  Perhaps she had at last begun to feel the good effects of the trial by fire which she had voluntarily undergone—­to know a certain happiness that now there was no longer any deceit in her heart.  This she had uprooted and driven out by force of her own will.  It was gone.  But now, on this morning, she seemed to feel that this was not all.

Something else had left her—­something that of late had harassed her and goaded her and embittered her life, and mocked at her gentleness and kindness, was gone.  That fierce, truculent hatred that she had so striven to put from her, now behold! of its own accord, it had seemed to leave her.  How had it happened?  Before she had dared the ordeal of confession this feeling of hatred, this perverse and ugly changeling that had brooded in her heart, had seemed too strong, too deeply seated to be moved.  Now, suddenly, it had departed, unbidden, without effort on her part.

Vaguely Lloyd wondered at this thing.  In driving deceit from her it would appear that she had also driven out hatred, that the one could not stay so soon as the other had departed.  Could the one exist apart from the other?  Was there, then, some strange affinity in all evil, as, perhaps, in all good, so that a victory over one bad impulse meant a victory over many?  Without thought of gain or of reward, she had held to what was right through the confusion and storm and darkness.  Was this to be, after all, her reward, her gain?  Possibly; but she could not tell, she could not see.  The confusion was subsiding, the storm had passed, but much of the darkness yet remained.  Deceit she had fought from out her heart; silently Hatred had stolen after it.  Love had not returned to his old place, and never, never would, but the changeling was gone, and the house was swept and garnished.