"I have just had my call, and I am leaving next week. I hope it means France very soon, but of course no one knows."
"Well, be sure to take a great deal more than they tell you to. I know a nurse who said she almost froze the first winter. Do you really have to wear woollen stockings? I should think they would make your flesh creep."
She passed on, blooming and lovely, and Caroline, with her bundle of woollen stockings under her arm, left the shop, and turned down a side street on her way to Mrs. Dandridge's. She was glad of the call, and yet—and yet—she had hoped deep down in her heart, a hope unspoken and unacknowledged, that she should see David again before she left Richmond. A moment would be enough—only it might be for the last time, and she felt that she must see him. In the last two months she had thought of him very little. Her work had engrossed her, and the hope of going to France had exhilarated her like wine through all the long days of drudgery. She had grown to expect so little of life that every pleasure was magnified into a blessing, and she found, in looking back, that an accumulation of agreeable incidents had provided her with a measure of happiness. Underneath it all was the knowledge of Blackburn, though love had come at last to take the place of a creed that one believes in, but seldom remembers. Yet she still kept the jewel in the casket, and it was only when she stopped now and then to reflect on her life, that she realized how long it had lain in its secret corner where the light of day never shone.
As she approached the boarding-house she saw a car by the sidewalk, and a minute afterwards, Mrs. Timberlake turned away from the door, and came down to the gate.
"Oh, Caroline, I was afraid I had missed you! Are you going very soon?"
"Not until next week." Did the housekeeper hear, she wondered, the wild throbbing of her heart?
"I came to see if you could come out for the night? Letty has been ailing for several days, and the doctor says she has a touch of fever. Miss Bradley is ill in bed, and we can't get a nurse anywhere until to-morrow. Of course Mammy Riah and I can manage, but David and I would both feel so much easier if you would come."
"Of course, I'll come. I'll get my bag in a minute. It is already packed." Without waiting for Mrs. Timberlake's reply, she ran into the house, and came out with the suitcase in her hands. "Tell me about Letty. Is her temperature high?"
"It has been all day, but you know how it is with children, as I told David this morning. You heard that David was back?"
"I saw it in the paper."