Caroline dressed for dinner an hour later with a nervous feeling, that was almost apprehension, weighting her.
"Why has she come to Dieppe?" she asked herself. "Can she know that he is there? I wish I could be more sure of him. It is just because he never speaks of her now that he makes me so anxious."
As luck would have it, that night when they went for their usual stroll after dinner Agnes Brenton introduced Broxbourne's name.
It was her husband who had urged her to let the matter stand all this time. She would not have spoken now only that she really was perplexed by Caroline's manner, and could not rid herself of the suggestion that though the girl was so bright, and her spirit seemed so unflagging, she was in reality not at all happy. From this it was a very short step to imagine that the man who was undoubtedly hovering about Caroline was the cause of this unhappiness.
They stood a long time in silence watching the moonlit sea; then Mrs. Brenton said, with a sigh—
"I shall be sorry to go away from here;" and Caroline said—
"So shall I." A moment later she said, "I wish I knew what my future is going to be."
Mrs. Brenton looked at her.
"What do you mean, dear child?"
"I mean," said Caroline, "that everything before me is uncertain. Undoubtedly the children's mother will make an attempt to have them with her; but this cannot possibly be a lasting arrangement, because I know something about Cuthbert Baynhurst, and I can hardly picture him living in the same house, however large, with children. And," said Caroline, with a little catch in her voice, "assuredly in that house there would be no place for me."