“Lucy, darling! You must not go!”
Louise was sitting up now, her hands at her temples. Lucy bent over her with an arm about her neck. “You surprise me very much, Dearie. I thought you liked him.”
“Yes; of course. But you must not go with him this afternoon. It will not do.”
The girl sat down on the bed beside her. “But I’ve said I would, Dearie, and he’s already here, waiting for me with the horses. And I must go, Dearie. It would be awfully rude and horrid to try to get out of it now.”
Sudden apprehension filled Miss Dent’s mind. It was not like Lucy to hold so persistently to anything that was against her wish. Her intense feeling against Curtis Conrad swept over her excited, tingling nerves and filled her mind with the conviction that she must keep Lucy away from him. Things jigged and swam before her eyes, as her thoughts whirled dizzily through her brain. “Lucy, dear child!” she exclaimed, “I wish you would not go. Indeed, you must not go!”
Lucy arose, clad in a new womanly dignity that sent a half-realized dismay through the turmoil of Miss Dent’s mind. Vaguely, with an aching sense of loss, she felt that Lucy had become a woman who would henceforth direct her life for herself. With her hands holding her throbbing head, through which excruciating pains were darting, Louise strove to steady her thoughts.
“I don’t understand,” said Lucy, gently, “why you speak in this way, or why you wish me to be rude to Mr. Conrad. If there is any good reason why I should not go to ride with him this afternoon, and you will tell me what it is, so that I can judge for myself, I can beg him to excuse me, because you are not well—and—ask him to stay to dinner instead.”
New alarm seized Miss Dent. In her excitement she tried to rise, only to drop back trembling upon the bed. For the moment her one thought was that this man must be kept out of the house. “Lucy,” she pleaded, despair in her voice, “you do not understand. He is not our friend now. He is your father’s enemy—and is trying to kill him.”
She stopped in sudden panic at having said so much, and Lucy started back amazed.
“Oh, Dearie—you don’t know, do you—and daddy—you don’t know about daddy?”