"Are you sure this is the place?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am. Do you want to get out?"
Fresh courage inspired her, brought about by the sharp realization that it was the only way to find help, humiliating though the method might be. There was no other way, and his question: "Where shall I take you?" reminded her forcibly that she had no place to go.
"Yes," she said, decisively, and with the haste of one who is afraid that hesitation will bring weakness, she stepped to the carriage-block.
"Shall I wait, ma'am?"
"I don't know how long I'll be here," she said, her ignorance confronted by another puzzle. The driver saw in his mind sufficient cause for her uncertainty, and sagely concluded that she was a poor mother who expected to find a home for her babe with the wealthy people who lived at No. ——.
"I'll drive into the park and be back in half an hour, ma'am, if you think you'll be there that long," he said, and away he rolled. She mounted the steps quickly and, after a long and embarrassing search, found the electric button and rang the door bell. A trim maid responded. Justine had fondly hoped that Miss Wood herself would come to the door, and her heart sank with disappointment.
"Is Miss Wood at home?" she managed to ask.
"She does not live here," replied the maid, surveying the caller with a superior and supercilious air.
"I thought her brother——" began Justine, faintly. She felt as if she were about to fall.