Deb gazed at her sister’s rapt face, glowing in the firelight, and wondered if the brain behind it could be altogether sane.

“To call that happiness!” she ejaculated, with sad irony and scorn.

“If you must fix a name to it—­yes,” the widow considered thoughtfully.

“After all, ‘unmiserable’ does not go far enough.  I am happy.  For, Debbie”—­turning to look into the dark, troubled eyes—­“I’m clean now—­I never thought to be again—­to know anything so exquisitely sweet, either in earth or heaven—­I’m clean, body and soul, day and night, inside and outside, at last.”

“Oh, poor girl!” Deb moaned, with tears, when she realised what this meant.

“Rich,” corrected Mary—­“rich, dear, with just a roof and a crust of bread.”

“Well,” said Deb presently, “what about that roof and crust of bread?  Since we are telling each other everything, tell me what your resources are.  Don’t say it is not my business; I know it isn’t, but I shall be wretched if you don’t let me make it mine a little.  How much have you?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t care.  I haven’t given money a thought.  It doesn’t matter.”

“But it does matter.  You can’t even keep clean without a bathtub and a bit of soap.  But what am I thinking of?—­of course, you will settle all that with Bob.”

The little word of three letters brought Mrs Goldsworthy down from her clouds at once.

“Oh, no!” she cried quickly, almost fearfully.  “On no account would I interfere with his arrangements, his career.  He would do everything that was right and dutiful, I am sure, but I would sooner starve than take charity from my own child.  But there’s no need to take it from anybody.  I have all I want.”

“How much?”

“I couldn’t tell you to a pound or two, but enough for my small wants.”

“They do seem small, indeed.  Where are you going to live?  Won’t you come to me, Molly?  Redford is big enough, and it’s morally yours as much as mine.  You should have your own rooms—­all the privacy you like—­”

“No, darling—­thank you all the same.  I have made my plans.  I am going to have a little cottage somewhere in the country, where there is no dust, or smoke, or people—­where I can walk on clean earth and grass, and smell only trees and rain and the growing things.  Alone?  Oh, yes!  Of course, I shall see you sometimes—­and my boy; but for a home—­all the home I can want or wish for now—­that is my dream.”

“I don’t think,” said Deb, “that I ever heard human ambition—­and happiness—­expressed in such terms before.”  It was the final result of Mary’s experiment in the business of a woman’s life.

Deb drove back to her hotel, thoughtful and sad and tired.  When Rosalie had left her for the night, she wrote to Claud by way of comforting herself.  She told him what she had been doing—­described her interviews with Rose and Mary respectively, and the impressions they had left on her.