The lady’s tone aroused in Lexy a great desire not to go. Of course, now that she had gone so far, it would be childish to refuse to continue; but she meant to take her time. She stood there by the window, slowly drawing off her gloves, her back turned to the room. Suddenly Mrs. Enderby caught her by the shoulder and turned her around.
“Go!” she said again. “Take off those things of my child’s. Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Have you no heart?”
There was such a note of anguish in her voice that Lexy no longer delayed. She followed Miss Craigie up the stairs to a neat, prim little bedroom, where the trunk stood, already unlocked.
“If you want anything—” suggested Miss Craigie, in her gentle and apologetic way.
“No, thank you,” replied Lexy.
Miss Craigie went out, closing the door softly behind her. Lexy took off Caroline’s hat and coat and laid them on the bed.
“I wonder if I’ll ever see her wearing them again!” she thought.
For a long time she stood motionless, looking down at the things that Caroline had worn. Most pitifully eloquent, they seemed to her—the hat that had covered Caroline’s fair hair, the coat that had fitted her slender shoulders. Lexy looked and looked, grave and sorrowful—and in that moment her resolution was made.
“I’m going to find her!” she said, half aloud. “I don’t care what any one else does or what any one else thinks. I know she’s in trouble of some sort, and I’m going to find her!”
The last trace of what Lexy had called “mawkish self-pity” had vanished now. She was no longer concerned with Mrs. Enderby’s attitude toward herself. It didn’t matter. Finding another job didn’t matter, either. She had a little money due her, and she meant to use it—every penny of it—in finding Caroline.