"Yes." "Then you can't expect _me_ to stay in your house!" flashed the woman who was outraged. "As you like, Mrs. Hughes," was the answer. Mrs. Hughes moved a little away, plainly discomfited. "I should be sorry to have you go," Mrs. Williams continued courteously, "but of course that is for you to decide." "I'm a respectable woman," she muttered. "You can't expect _me_ to wait on a person like that!" "You needn't wait on her, then," was the reply. "Until the nurse comes, I will wait on her myself." And again she turned abruptly away. Once more her heart was beating too fast. When the doctor came and began about the arrangement he had been able to make at the hospital, she quietly told him that, if it would be as well, she would rather keep Lily at home. His startled look made her flush. His manner with her was less brusque as he said good-by. She smiled a little over that last puzzled glance he stole at her. Then she went back to Lily's room. She straightened her bed for her, telling her that in a little while the nurse would be there to make her really comfortable. She bathed the girl's hot face and hands. She got her a cold drink. As she put her hand behind her head to raise her a little for that, the girl murmured brokenly: "You're so kind!" She went out and sat in an adjoining room, to be within call. And as she sat there a feeling of strange peace stole through her. It was as if she had been set free, as if something that had chained her for years had fallen away. When in her talk with Mrs. Hughes she became that other woman, the woman on the other side, on compassion's side, something just fell from her. When that poor girl murmured, "You're so kind!" she suddenly knew that she must have something more from life than that satisfaction of harming those who had hurt her. When she washed the girl's face she knew what she could not unknow. She had served. She could not find the old satisfaction in working harm. The soft, warm thing that filled her heart with that cry, "You're so kind!" had killed forever the old cruel satisfaction in being in the way. She felt very quiet in this wonderful new liberation. She began shaping life as something more than a standing in the way of others. It made life seem a different thing just to think of it as something other than that. And suddenly she knew that she did not hate Ruth Holland any more; that she did not even hate the man who had been her husband. Hating had worn itself out; it fell from her, a thing outlived. It was wonderful to have it gone. For a long time she sat there very quiet in the wonder of that peace of knowing that she was free--freed of the long hideous servitude of hating, freed of wanting to harm. It made life new and sweet. She wanted something from life. She must have more of that gentle sweetness that warmed her heart when Lily murmured, "You're so kind!" CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE