Ellen went now and then to the Cardew house, and brought back with her the news of the family.  At first she had sternly refused to talk about the Cardews to Edith, but the days in the sick room had been long and monotonous, and Edith’s jealousy of Lily had taken the form, when she could talk, of incessant questions.

So Edith knew that Louis Akers had been the cause of Lily’s leaving home, and called her a poor thing in her heart.  Quite lately she had heard that if Lily was not already engaged she probably would be, soon.  Now her motives were mixed, and her emotions confused.  She had wanted to tell Willy Cameron what she knew, but she wanted Lily to marry Louis Akers.  She wanted that terribly.  Then Lily would be out of the way, and—­Willy was not like Dan; he did not seem to think her forever lost.  He had always been thoughtful, but lately he had been very tender with her.  Men did strange things sometimes.  He might be willing to forget, after a long time.  She could board the child out somewhere, if it lived.  Sometimes they didn’t live.

But if they arrested Louis, Lily Cardew would fling him aside like an old shoe.

She closed her eyes.  That opened a vista of possibilities she would not face.

She stopped in her mother’s room on her slow progress upstairs, moved to sudden pity for the frail life now wearing to its close.  If that were life she did not want it, with its drab days and futile effort, its incessant deprivations, its hands, gnarled with work that got nowhere, its greatest blessing sleep and forgetfulness.

She wondered why her mother did not want to die, to get away.

“I’ll soon be able to look after you a bit, mother,” she said from the doorway.  “How’s the pain down your arm?”

“Bring me the mucilage, Edie,” requested Mrs. Boyd.  She was propped up in bed and surrounded by newspapers.  “I’ve found Willy’s name again.  I’ve got fourteen now.  Where’s the scissors?”

Eternity was such a long time.  Did she know?  Could she know, and still sit among her pillows, snipping?

“I wonder,” said Mrs. Boyd, “did anybody feed Jinx?  That Ellen is so saving that she grudges him a bone.”

“He looks all right,” said Edith, and went on up to bed.  Maybe the Lord did that for people, when they reached a certain point.  Maybe He took away the fear of death, by showing after years of it that life was not so valuable after all.  She remembered her own facing of eternity, and her dread of what lay beyond.  She had prayed first, because she wanted to have some place on the other side.  She had prayed to be received young and whole and without child.  And her mother—­

Then she had a flash of intuition.  There was something greater than life, and that was love.  Her mother was upheld by love.  That was what the eternal cutting and pasting meant.  She was lavishing all the love of her starved days on Willy Cameron; she was facing death, because his hand was close by to hold to.