"It's an unfortunate business," he said briefly. "Of course I see his point. We shall have to write to Mrs. Newton."
Poor Lesbia, sitting listening, did not dare to ask for an explanation, but later on Mrs. Patterson told her the bad news.
"Paul is deeply hurt at your leaving the steamer. He says, 'I have been both father and brother to Lesbia for the last eight years, and consider it unpardonable of her to desert my wife in such a pinch. As she evidently does not wish to make her home with us, I feel my responsibility for her may justly come to an end, and I may hand her over to her own relations. Had she come with us to Canada I would have treated her as one of my own children, but in the circumstances she has really no further claim upon me. I think I have done my share, and it is now the turn of others to provide for her.'"
"Has he cast me off altogether?" gasped Lesbia.
"I'm afraid so. You've really nobody but yourself to blame. We must write round to your various relations and see who's ready to help you. If only you had been a couple of years older! You're hardly sixteen and so childish for your age. There, don't cry, Lesbia!" (more kindly). "We shall manage something for you amongst us. Your relations certainly won't turn you adrift. But, of course, it's difficult to arrange when we have children of our own to educate. I expect your fees were paid at school until Christmas, so you may just as well go back there until the end of the term. I'll call on Miss Tatham and talk the matter over with her. You were getting on so nicely at the High School, it seems a pity for you to leave, doesn't it?"
"Yes; I should like to go back there," answered Lesbia forlornly.
CHAPTER VI
Lesbia's Future
Lesbia having, figuratively speaking, eaten Eve's apple and cast her happy-go-lucky childhood behind her, found her newly acquired knowledge exceedingly bitter fruit. Mrs. Patterson was not disposed to treat her as the Hiltons had done, leaving her in complete ignorance of ways and means. On the contrary she discussed the financial side of her prospects to the last half-penny. She did it quite kindly, but with unsparing plainness.
"You'll have to face the fact that later on you must earn your own living, Lesbia," she said. "We must decide what's the best way to educate you and train you, so as to make you fit for something."