“Come and sit down at once, Millie,” she said. “We have got to talk. So let us make it as easy as we can for each other.”
Millie was holding her muff up to her face, and peered at her from above it, wild-eyed, terrified.
“It isn’t you I want,” she said. “Where is Lyndhurst? I—I had an appointment with him. He was late—we—we were going a drive together. What do you know, Cousin Amy?” she almost shrieked; “and where is he?”
“Sit down, Millie, as I tell you,” said Mrs. Ames very quietly. “There is nothing to be frightened at. I know everything.”
“We were going a drive,” began Millie again, still looking wildly about. “He did not come, and I was frightened. I came to see where he was. I asked you if you knew—if you knew anything about him, did I not? Why do you say you know everything?”
Suddenly Mrs. Ames saw that there was something here infinitely more worthy of pity than she had suspected. There was no question as to the agonized earnestness that underlay this futile, childish repetition of nonsense. And with that there came into her mind a greater measure of understanding with regard to her husband. It was not so wonderful that he had been unable to resist the face that had drawn him.
“Let us behave like sensible women, Millie,” she said. “You have come down from the station. Lyndhurst was not there. Do you want me to tell you anything more?”
Millie wavered where she stood, then she stumbled into a chair.
“Has he given me up?” she said.
“Yes, if you care to put it like that. It would be truer to say that he has saved you and himself. But he is not coming with you.”