"I don't think—I feel it! There is something that he can say." Mrs. Bobby's eyes seemed to challenge a denial. Elizabeth met them with a look of defiance.
"There is nothing," she said. "He knows nothing; or if he did"—she lowered her voice with a sudden change of tone—"if he could save me, I'd rather die than have him sent for."
"Ah—you'd rather die?" Mrs. Bobby caught her breath. "And you think that is fair—to yourself, to your aunts, to us all?"
"I don't know." The girl's voice had the ring of weary obstinacy that suffering will sometimes assume. "I only know I don't want him—sent for."
Mrs. Bobby seemed to reflect. "We can't send for him," she said at last, "we don't know where he is."
Elizabeth started. "You don't," she repeated, in a low voice, "know where he is?"—
"No, he left no address. His mail is at his banker's—they don't know where to forward it."
Elizabeth turned her face away. "Ah, I see," she murmured, "he doesn't wish to be reminded of—anything at home." A pale cold smile flitted across her white face. "It is better so," she said, firmly, "far, far better. I am glad that he is away and that there is no use in sending for him."
"But if there were"—all Mrs. Bobby's self-control could not keep the tremor from her voice—"if there were, Elizabeth, isn't there something that he could testify in your favor? Do tell me, dear," she urged; the girl sat silent. "You see I have guessed it—it can do no harm for me to know what it is."
Elizabeth spoke at last, low and hesitatingly. "He knows that on the twenty-third of December, when—when that man said he saw me in Brooklyn, I was with him—with Julian. I went out that morning, meaning to do some shopping, but I met him accidentally. He persuaded me to go up to the Metropolitan Museum—there was a picture he wanted to show me. We were there some hours. And—and that is all."