Mrs. Royce went out of the room, and Lexy knelt down beside the bed. She did know now—the woman whom they had all called Muriel Quelton was really Caroline Enderby.
Lexy did not blame herself for not having known before. Looking at that face now, in its terrible stillness, she could trace the familiar features easily enough, but how changed! How worn and lined, how old! The brows, the lashes, the soft, disordered hair, were black now instead of brown; but that merely physical alteration was of no significance, compared with that other awful change. It was Caroline Enderby, the gentle and pitifully inexperienced girl of nineteen, but it was Mrs. Quelton, too, that tragic and somber figure.
Mrs. Royce came back with a basin of water, clean towels, and a precious bottle of eau de Cologne.
“Poor lamb!” she whispered. “Ain’t she pretty?”
Lexy wet a towel and passed it over that unconscious face again and again. Mrs. Royce watched, spellbound; for the dark and haggard stranger was passing away before her very eyes, and some one else was coming into life—some one quite young and—
The closed lids fluttered, and then opened.
“Lexy!” murmured the metamorphosed one.
“I’m here, Caroline!” said Lexy, with a stifled sob. “Everything’s all right, dear! Don’t worry—just rest!”
“I can’t, Lexy! I can’t!” she answered, and from her eyes, now closed again, tears came running slowly down her cheeks.
“Yes, you can!” said Lexy. “We’ll—”