"We are to start to-morrow," the girl said, "very early."
And again Donelle was alone with her chance!
Later she ate her dinner quietly in the dim oak dining room. Candles burned; there was an open fire on the hearth and pale yellow hothouse roses on the table. Never was the girl to forget that last meal in the Walled House. And then, she was once more alone upstairs with—her chance!
She went to the window and looked out. A rising moon was lighting the road, The Road!
Suddenly Tom Gavot seemed to stand in the emptiness and beckon her from that road with which he had played when he was a sad and neglected child. How clean and fine he had made it seem; he who had come from such a father! In that moment Pierre Gavot shrank from sight, he had polluted the road, but Tom had sanctified it.
The road was open now for Donelle to choose. Should she go over the hill to life or—— And so she struggled. She heard Mrs. Lindsay return, but it did not occur to her to confide in any one. The shame was only bearable if she bore it in secret, but where should she bear it? Out, over the hill, where no one knew; where Mrs. Lindsay and Jo would keep people from knowing? Could she be happy and forget?
Donelle took up her violin. She clutched it to her. It could make her forget, it must! Even if she wakened the household she felt she must play.
But she could not play! Her hand was heavy, her brain dull.
Then something Revelle had once said to her flashed into her mind.
"Always live right, child. You can never have your gift at its best unless you keep its place holy. No matter what any one may tell you, keep the place clean and right in which your gift lives!"