"I did. I do. I began it in those unspeakable days when Tom went out of his head with fright and fever and we held him down in bed. Electra!" She was listening. "Was that grandmother calling?" she asked, though grandmother never yet had summoned her for companionship or service. But Electra felt her high decorum failing her. She was tired with the impact of emotion, and it was a part of her creed never to confess to weakness. She had snatched at the slight subterfuge as if it were a sustaining draught. "I am afraid I must go." "Electra!" He placed himself before her with outstretched hands. Very simple emotions were talking in him. They told him that this was the second day of his return, that he was her lover, and he had not kissed her. And they told him also, to his sheer fright and bewilderment, that he did not want to kiss her. All he could ineffectually do was to reiterate, "We can't go on like this. Nothing in the world is worth it." Yet while he said it, he knew there was one thing at least infinitely worth while: to right the wrongs of a beautiful and misjudged lady. Only it was necessary, apparently, for the present, to keep the lady out of the question. Electra was listening. "It is grandmother," she said recklessly. "I must go." There was a rustle up the staircase, and he was alone in the library, to take himself home as he might. VI After a week Electra had made no sign toward acceptance of the unbidden guest. She received Peter sweetly and kindly whenever he went to see her, but he felt they were very far apart. Something had been destroyed; the bubble of pleasure was broken and, as it seemed, for good and all. He strove to find his way back into their lost dream and take her with him; but there was no visible path. Rose spared him questions. She stayed gratefully on, and grannie was delighted with her. Rose had such a way of fitting into circumstance that it seemed an entirely natural thing to have her there, and Peter forgot to wonder even at the pleasure of it. Twice she came in from a walk pale and inexplicably excited, and he knew she had been besieging the scornful lady in the other house. But she kept her counsel. She had never seen Osmond since her coming, though she knew he and Peter had long talks together at the plantation.