As a
matter of fact, Janet had no mean ideas of design; but they were
vigorous and, for her living, she had to struggle against the
overwhelming sentimentalism of the _nouveau_ art.
In dealing with Sally then, a subject needing tact, common sense and
an unyielding strength of purpose, she was more than eminently fitted
to save her from the edge of the precipice towards which she had found
her so blindly stumbling. It was just such a moment as when one sees
one's dearest friend walking blindly to the verge of an abyss and
knows that too sudden a cry, too swift a movement to save them, may
plunge their reckless body for ever into eternity. In this moment,
Janet kept her wits. With infinite care, with infinite tenderness,
never weakening to the importunate demands that were made of her,
giving up her work, giving up every other interest that she had, she
slowly drew Sally back into the steady current of existence; saw day
by day the life come tardily again into the bloodless cheeks, and
watched the smearing shadows beneath the hollow eyes as they
disappeared.
Then, at the end of a fortnight, she learnt in quavering sentences
from Sally's lips, trembling as they told it, the story of her
desertion.
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