“But you’re not going?”
“Yes; I’m tired. And I want to be by myself—to think. I must decide about my own future.”
“Your own future? Oh, nonsense! Let all this blow over. Wait till Anne comes back. The chief thing, of course, is that you should stay with her, whatever happens.”
She put her hand in his. “Goodbye, Fred. And thank you.”
“I’ll do all I can, you know,” he said, as he followed her down the stairs. “But you mustn’t desert Anne.”
The taxi he had called carried her back to her desolate house.
XVIII.
HER place was beside Anne—that was all she had got out of Fred Landers. And in that respect she was by no means convinced that her instinct was not surer than his, that she was not right in agreeing with her daughter that their experiment had been a failure.
Yet, even if it had, she could not leave Anne now; not till she had made sure there was no further danger from Chris. Ah—if she were once certain of that, it would perhaps be easiest and simplest to go! But not till then.
She did not know when Anne was coming back; no word had come from her. Mrs. Clephane had an idea that the house-keeper knew; but she could not ask the house-keeper. So for another twenty-four hours she remained on, with a curious sense of ghostly unconcern, while she watched Aline unpack her trunks and “settle” her into her rooms for the winter.