And Eleanor, watching her through this wordless passage, gathered all the currents that had been running through her will into an indeterminate determination. In that moment she realized the full bitterness of a renunciation that does not mean renouncing a wholly dear and desired thing, but does mean renouncing the beloved thing which one is better without. Kate turned at length. Eleanor, as their eyes met, could read in her face and body the change as the actress took command once more. Kate flew at once to her hollow conventional phrases. "The poor, poor boy!" she said. "Oh, we must all help!" Eleanor turned away with the feeling that this made it harder for her to perform her renunciation--if real renunciation it were. The day brought too much work, activity, purely material anxiety, for a great deal of thought. They had cut off the telephone in the main wing of the Tiffany house and switched the current to the instrument in Eleanor's living-room. Most of the day she spent answering that telephone. People of whom she had never even heard, made anxious inquiries about the condition of Mr. Chester. Before night the newspapers became a plague. For in the afternoon, winged reporters, shot out in volleys for a "second day story," had called at 2196 Valencia and found there no Sadie Brown. Hurrying down the back trail to the Emporium, they did discover an indignant little shop-girl of that name. Those reporters who had been with the wreck the night before found no resemblance in her to the mysterious lady. Then came a bombardment, in person and by telephone, of the Tiffany house. The Judge, meeting all callers at the front door, lied tactfully. The city editors gave up sending reporters and took to bullying over the telephone; so that the burden of an unaccustomed lying fell upon Eleanor. At eleven o'clock, and after one voice had declared that the _Journal_ had the whole account and would make it pretty peppery if the Tiffanys did not confirm it, Eleanor took the telephone off the hook and went to bed. The morning papers did pretty well with what they had. "Mysterious Woman Nurses Prominent Varsity Athlete"--"Who Is The Pretty Girl that Nursed Society Man in Las Olivas Horror?"--"Modest Heroine of Las Olivas Holocaust." But the secret, thanks to Mark Heath, was safe. * * * * * She slept that night. Far along in the morning she awoke to the delicious sense of physical renewal. The situation crept into her mind stage by stage, as such things do arrive in the awakening consciousness. She was calm now, what with her rest of body, her decision of soul. She could think it out; her course of action and how she might accomplish it.