“Now stop!” she said firmly. “Stop it! We haven’t got anything to do but send this to Martin Moreland. We must make him think that it was sent by a lawyer. We’ve got to let him know that we’re able to fight, that we will fight. But you can bank on one thing that’s certain and sure. He isn’t going to explain to the public to whom the child he brought for your care, belonged. He isn’t going to want the other deacons of the Presbyterian Church and the directors of the bank and the county officials to know where he got the boy he forced you to take care of. Certainly he isn’t going to want to face the question, ‘Who’s his mother?’ You needn’t be the least bit afraid. Never in the world will he let that happen. He’s just what you said he was—a vulture. He doesn’t care whether the meat he lives on is fresh or rotten. He can thrive on either kind equally well.” Marcia sat a long time gazing into the kitchen. It was a strange thing that she could draw comfort from a cook stove and pots and pans. They are not particularly attractive to many people, but they were attractive to Marcia. There are souls in this world so stranded that they are fortunate if they have an animal upon which to lavish their affections; and there are others whose lives are so bleak that they must love mere things—the bed on which they sleep, the chairs on which they sit, the pots and pans in which they cook the food that they eat. And then, pots and pans are a symbol. They do not mean beauty, but they mean utility. They suggest nourishment, strength, and sustenance. They spell home, and home means sheltering walls and sometimes it means love. It meant love to Marcia. As she looked up at Nancy, still in her rock-bound attitude, she saw upon her face a thing that swept a wave of emotion through Marcia’s sick soul such as it never before had known. She was not going to be forced to give up the accumulations of years against comfort for age and illness. That meant something. But it did not mean the highest thing. She was still young and strong. She knew that there were several ways in which she could assure bodily comfort. The thing of which she got assurance in that hour was the greatest thing in all this world. It was the assurance that the little milliner would stand by, that she was not going to desert a sinking ship. Whatever happened, her friendship was going to weather; whatever storm broke on her friend, she was going to be the anchor that would hold. In that hour Marcia deliberately went down on her knees again. She put her arms around the waist of Nancy, she met her eyes frankly, and she purged her soul. Torn beyond control when she had finished the last word of self-condemnation she had to utter, when the last scalding tear she had to shed had burned its way down her cheeks, she pulled open the dress she was wearing, exposing her firm white breast to her friend. Her own eyes were upon it.