“Circe—beloved enchantress,” so the letter ran. “Am I to have no word from you? It is getting urgent, and I have news for you. First, let me make a confession! When I left you that evening at the cottage, I stole one of your sketches—the one of the stepping-stones. I sent it to a friend of mine in town, and have to-day received it back. He speaks very highly of it, and declares you have a living in your talent, if not a fortune. How does that appeal to you? The old woman tells me you are better, but that you are staying on at Tetherstones. I must see you somewhere where we can talk undisturbed. Will you come to the Stones to-night at ten? I will wait for you there.
“Yours with all my love as ever. M. R.”
So that was why he had written a second time! He had news for her. Such news as she had little expected—news that made her heart leap wildly. This was freedom. This was deliverance. Strange that they should have come to her by his hand!
No further doubt existed in her mind with regard to meeting him. She would certainly meet him. She put her letter away with a business-like precision that wholly banished her agitation. It was the best tonic that she could possibly have received. She wondered what had made him take the trouble, and the thought of being under an obligation to him oppressed her for a time, but she thrust it away from her. She could not afford to be too scrupulous in this particular. To make her own living successfully seemed to her at that moment the goal of all desire.
The arrival of Nell with her tray diverted her thoughts. Nell’s face was flushed, her eyes round and indignant.
“A nice family of wild beasts you must think us!” she said, as she dumped the tray on a corner of the dressing-table. “I suppose you’re making plans to leave us by the next train. It’s enough to make you.”
Frances looked at her, and saw that she was near to angry tears. “My dear child,” she said gently, “please put that idea quite out of your mind! When I go—and it will probably be soon now that I am so much better—it won’t be with any feelings of that sort. It will only be with the very warmest gratitude to you all for your goodness to me.”
“Do you mean that?” said Nell.
“Of course I mean it,” Frances said.
“Well, I’m glad—awfully glad.” The girl spoke with honest feeling. “We’re all so fond of you, Miss Thorold, and we do do our best to make you happy. It isn’t our fault that—that—” She checked herself. “I expect you understand that,” she ended more calmly.