When Dorothy joined her in the laboratory an hour later, the girl was engaged in an operation so delicate that the tremor of a finger, the jarring of a sharply closed door, or even a sudden breath of air would have ruined the work. “Step lightly, please,” was all that she said. Dorothy saw that the girl had completely mastered herself. And Dorothy admired and rejoiced. XIX DOROTHY’S DECISION KILGARIFF had not long to wait for Dorothy’s answer, nor was the reply an uncertain one. It was not Dorothy’s habit to be uncertain of her own mind, especially where any question of right and wrong was involved. She never hesitated to do or advise the right as she saw it, and she never on any account juggled with the truth or avoided it. So far as the trusteeship was concerned, she accepted the appointment for herself and also for Edmonia Bannister and Agatha Pegram, both of whom were within an hour’s ride of Wyanoke, as Agatha was staying for a time at Edmonia’s home, Branton. Dorothy had gone to them at once on receipt of Kilgariff’s letter, and both had consented to accept the trust. That matter out of the way, Dorothy took up the other with that directness of mind which made her always clear-sighted and well-nigh unerring in judgment, at least where questions of conduct were concerned. I am rather surprised, Kilgariff [she wrote], and not quite pleased with you. Can you not see that you have no more right to let me read Evelyn’s papers than to read them yourself? They are hers to do with as she pleases, and neither you nor I may so much as read a line of them without her voluntary consent. Neither, I think, have you any right to withhold them from her. They are her property, and you must give them to her, as you would her purse, had it come into your possession. The fact that these papers may hurt her feelings in the reading has no bearing whatever on the case. It is not your function to protect her against unpleasantness by withholding from her anything to which she has a right, whether it be property or information or anything else. You are not her father, or her brother, or her husband, or even a man affianced to her—this last mainly by your own fault, I think. It is just like a man to think that he has a right to wrong a woman by way of protecting her and sparing her feelings. Let me tell you that Evelyn Byrd stands in need of no such protection. Little as I know of her life-experiences, that little is far more than you know. She has suffered; she has known wrong and oppression; she has had to work out for herself even the fundamental principles of morality in conduct. Her experience has been such that it has made her wonderfully strong, especially in the matter of endurance. She is tender, loving, sensitive—yes, exquisitely sensitive—but she has a self-control which amounts to stoicism—to positive heroism, I should say, if that word were not a badly overworked one.