For some time Miss Pritchard and Mrs. Moss discussed, not as they had purposed, the way out of it, but the affair itself: the change of names and destinations and the year of masquerading. They marvelled equally at the audacity and the success of the scheme, and the various circumstances that had favored it. Miss Pritchard reviewed the year aloud in the light of the discovery, with eager comment from the other.
"How Elsie could have accepted so much from you, knowing all the while she was deceiving you, I cannot understand!" cried Mrs. Moss, shaking her head sadly.
"Accepted! Oh, Mrs. Moss, if you could only know half the girl gave, you wouldn't speak of accepting!" protested Miss Pritchard. "She has made this year the happiest of my life, that captivating, lovely child has. As for deceiving—she didn't mean any such thing, and it wasn't real deceit in her case. She said just now she always felt as if I were really her cousin. When she swapped, she did it in such a whole-hearted way that she was herself almost as deluded as I. And later, when she began to realize, she suffered—looking back, I begin to understand that she has suffered torture."
Mrs. Moss suddenly bethought herself.
"The question is, what is to be done?" she repeated. "You see, I have left that girl in Enderby in a most uncomfortable position. The Middletons as yet know nothing. I shall have to break it to them, but before I do so, I want to come to some sort of an understanding with you."
"I confess, I don't see any way out of it at this moment," returned Miss Pritchard. "Dear me, I can't yet really realize we're in it."
"The simple thing would seem to be to just——"
"Swap back? Oh, it wouldn't be possible after all this time, my dear Mrs. Moss!" cried Miss Pritchard, really aghast.
"We shall have to see how the Middletons feel, of course," admitted Mrs. Moss. "Oh, Miss Pritchard, couldn't you go back with me to-night and then all of us talk it over together? I don't believe we'll ever come to any understanding unless you do. My flying back and forth between you like a shuttlecock isn't going to amount to anything."
"Yes, I will go on to Enderby—there's no other way," agreed Miss Pritchard, "but I can't go tonight, because Elsie has an engagement. It's her last appearance at that wretched place, I'm thankful to say. She and I will follow you to-morrow. Meantime, you can give them the plain facts to digest."