And it was the same with Alice. His only terrors
were for you. When he heard that she was coming, he had no alarms for
Aunt Pattie or for me. But you must be shielded--you must be saved from
everything repulsive or shocking. He sat up last night to protect you--and
even in his sleep--he heard you.'
Her voice dropped. Eleanor sat staring before her into the golden shadows
of the room, afraid of what she had said, instinctively waiting for its
effect on Lucy.
And Lucy crouched no longer. She had drawn herself erect.
'Mrs. Burgoyne, is it kind--is it _bearable_--that you should say these
things to me? I have not deserved them! No! no!--I have _not_. What right
have you? I can't protect myself--I can't escape you--but--'
Her voice shook. There was in it a passion of anger, pain, loneliness, and
yet something else--the note of something new-born and transforming.
'What right?' repeated Eleanor, in low tones--tones almost of astonishment.
She turned to her companion. 'The right of hunger--the right of
poverty--the right of one pleading for a last possession!--a last hope!'
Lucy was silenced. The passion of the older woman bore her down, made the
protest of her young modesty seem a mere trifling and impertinence. Eleanor
had slid to her knees. Her face had grown tremulous and sweet.
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