“I can’t make up my mind about that, Eleanor.  Let us talk only about the chapel just now.  Are you sure that other people would see it as you do?”

“Other people of my way of thinking would no doubt think the same—­ which is a pretty piece of tautology.  Edward would be amazed to hear that you have such scruples.  It isn’t as if you had promised to support a family in dire need, or anything of that kind.  The chapel is a superfluity.”

“Not to them.”

“They have one already.”

“But very small and inconvenient.”

“Suppose you ask Mr. Mallard for his thoughts on the subject?” said Eleanor, as if at the bidding of a caprice.

“Does Mr. Mallard know that I once had this purpose?”

“I think so,” replied the other, with a little hesitation.  “You know that there was no kind of reserve about it when you first came to Naples.”

“No, of course not.  Do you feel as sure of his opinion as of Edward’s?”

“I can’t say that I do.  There’s no foreseeing his judgment about anything.  As you are such good friends, why not consult him?”

“Our friendship doesn’t go so far as that.”

“And after all, I don’t see what use other people’s opinions can be to you,” said Eleanor, waiving the point.  “It’s a matter of sentiment.  Strict obligation you see, of course, that there is none whatever.  If it would please you to use a large sum of money in this way, you have a perfect right to do so.  But, by-the-bye, oughtn’t you to make the Bartles people clearly understand who it is that builds their chapel?”

“Surely there is no need of that?”

“I think so.  The scruple, in my case, would be far more on this side than on the other.”

Miriam did not care to pursue the conversation.  The one result of it was that she had an added uncertainty.  She had thought that her proposal to fulfil the promise would at least earn the respect which is due to stern conscientiousness; but Eleanor clearly regarded it as matter for the smile one bestows on good-natured folly.  Her questions even showed that she was at first in doubt as to the motives which had revived this project—­a doubt galling to Miriam, because of its justification.  She said, in going away: 

“Please to consider that this was in confidence, Eleanor.”

Confidence of a barren kind.  It was the same now as it had ever been; she had no one with whom she could communicate her secrets, no friend in the nearer sense.  On this loneliness she threw the blame of those faults which she painfully recognized in herself—­her frequent insincerity, her speeches and silences calculated for effect, her pride based on disingenuousness.  If she could but have disclosed her heart in the humility of love and trust, how would its aching have been eased!