Jo looked at Donelle blankly.
What the two had thought, dreamed, and hoped they, themselves, had not fully realized until now. In the passing of Alice Lindsay they felt a door closing upon them.
Donelle was crying bitterly. At the moment she felt only the personal loss, the sense of hurt; later the conviction grew upon her that what had unconsciously been upholding her was taken away. She had been hoping, hoping. The blow given her by Pierre Gavot, the paralyzing effect of it, had worn away during the secluded winter months; she was young, the world was hers, nothing could really take it away. Nothing had really happened in Point of Pines and they all knew! The larger world would not care, either. She had adjusted herself and in silence the fear and shame had departed, she had even grown to look at Jo as if—it were not true! But now, all was different.
"This man, this Mr. Law," Jo comforted, "will have some plan. And there are always my linens, Donelle, and if there is a boarder——"
But Donelle shook her head; a little tightening of her lips made them almost hard.
"This Mr. Law does not come, Mamsey," she said, "and besides, what could I do in that big, dreadful city with just him?"
"There would be that Professor Revelle," Jo's words were mere words, and she, herself, knew it. Donelle again shook her head.
But what humiliated her most of all was that she had let Jo see the truth! All the fine courage that had borne her from the Walled House to Point of Pines; where was it? She had meant to make up to poor Jo for the bitter wrong that was a hideous secret between them, and all the time there had been the longing for release; the expectation of it.
"I am like my father," shuddered the girl, "just as that awful Pierre said—only I did not run away."
With this slight comfort she began her readjustment, but her hope was dead. She struggled to forget that it had ever existed, and she put her violin away.