"There is another way, then: you must tell Cuthbert Brand not to send you any more flowers, and ask him to give no more drawing lessons at that school."
"Oh, Janetta, I can't. He has never said that he came to see me, and it would look as if I thought——"
"What you do think in your heart," said Janetta. Then, thinking that she had been a little brutal, she added, more gently—"But there is perhaps no need to decide to-day or to-morrow what we are to do. We can think over it and see if there is a better way. All that I am determined upon is that your doings must be fair and open."
"And you won't speak to anybody else about it, will you?" said Nora, rather relieved by this respite, and hoping to elude Janetta's vigilance still.
"I shall promise nothing," Janetta answered. "I must think about it."
She turned to leave the room, but was arrested by a burst of sobbing and a piteous appeal.
"You are very unkind, Janetta. I thought that you would have sympathized."
Janetta stood still and sighed. "I don't know what to say, Nora," she said.
"You are very cold—very hard. You do not care one bit what I feel."
Perhaps, thought Janetta, the reproach had some truth in it. At any rate she went quietly out of the room and closed the door, leaving Nora to cry as long and as heartily as she pleased.