"Are—you asleep, Aunt Dorrie?" The silence awed Joan.
"No, dear heart. I am just thinking."
And so Doris was—thinking that she was walking in the dark. Her own small flashlight had seemed enough to guide her, and here she discovered that it had only shown her one path, the one she had chosen, and all the other paths—Mary's, Nancy's, and Joan's—had been disregarded.
Suddenly it seemed as dangerous to have too much faith as too little.
"I want you, Joan, dear, to go up and play, now, with Nancy. See if you cannot take all the old games and make a new one. That would be such a pleasant thing to do."
"Must I, Auntie Dorrie? I'd rather stay here close to you. It's a new game. I like it here."
It was hard to send the small, clinging thing away, but Doris was firm.
Once alone, she closed her eyes and let her hands fall, palms upward, on her lap. She felt tired and perplexed. There had come a parting of the ways. Apparently the ninth year was a dangerous year. What must she do? Was Mary more ignorant than she seemed or—more knowing? What had Mary known at Ridge House?
The dull, quiet girl, as Doris recalled her, seemed merely a part of the machinery of the Sisters' Home; she had never taken her into account—but had she been what she seemed? What was she now?
It was appalling—in the doubt as to what was, or was not—to think that so much had been taken for granted.