"I am glad Jack has you," she continued. "I wish, oh, so deeply, that I might do or say anything to alleviate his sorrow; but you see," appealingly, "the only thing I can do is to keep away. Jack and I were good friends once, but that is all over."
As Page a little later came downstairs to leave the house, Mildred Bryant rose from a seat near the fireplace in the hall. Her face looked a little paler than was its wont, and faint shadows about her eyes told of grief; but she was once more the self-possessed girl he had first seen on the train.
"You are returning at once to Boston?" she asked.
"Yes. I leave to-night."
"I saw by your face as you came downstairs that you think my sister looks badly; but of course you do. Well, I believe there is nothing more, there are no more shocks that she can suffer—unless she should lose me, and I fancy I am long for this world;" a shade of the girl's pretty ironical smile flitted over her lips; "but I could lose her," the hazel eyes suddenly became bright with unshed tears; "and," with vehemence, "I will not. I am going, we are going away to search for Clover's girlhood. It must come back. She has been cheated out of it too soon."
"Mrs. Van Tassel told me that you intend going West. Southern California will surely do her good."
"I hope so. I am glad you have been here these last days. It has been a comfort to my sister."
"Do you really think so?" eagerly.
"Without doubt. I observed that she seemed less anxious about—everything, from the moment of your coming."
"The matter of telling Jack had preyed upon her," said Page sympathetically.