“But, Mrs. Enderby!”
“Hush! No one must know of this. To-morrow morning I shall have a letter from Caroline.”
“Oh!” said Lexy, with a sigh of genuine relief. “Oh, then you know where she’s gone!”
“I?” replied Mrs. Enderby. “I know nothing. This has come to me from a clear sky. I have always tried to safeguard my child. I—”
She paused for a moment, and for the first time Lexy pitied her.
“It is the American blood in her,” Mrs. Enderby went on. “No French girl would treat her parents so; but in this country—She has gone with some fortune hunter. To-morrow I shall have a letter that she is married. ‘Please forgive me, chère Maman,’ she will say. ‘I am so happy. I, at nineteen, and of an ignorance the most complete, have made my choice without you.’ That is the American way, is it not? That is your ‘romance,’ eh? My one child—”
Her voice broke.
“No more!” she said. “It is finished. But—attend, Miss Moran! There must be no scandal. No one is to know that she is not here.”
She turned and walked out of the room. Lexy sank into a chair.
“I don’t care!” she said to herself. “She’s wrong—I know it! It’s not what she thinks. Caroline’s not like that. Something dreadful has happened!”