"Norma, my darling," her aunt said, arresting the whirling little figure with a big arm, and looking down at her with all the love and sadness of her great heart in her face, "why do you want to see him, dear? He told me—he had to tell his mother, poor boy, for his heart is broken—that you were not going with him!"
"Oh, but Aunt Kate—he'll have to wait for me!" Norma said, stamping a slippered foot, and beginning to cry with hurt and helplessness. "Oh, won't you help me? You always help me! Don't—don't mind what I said to Wolf; you know how silly I am! But please—please——"
"But, Baby—you're sure?" Mrs. Sheridan asked, feeling as if ice that had been packed about her heart for days was breaking and stirring, and as if the exquisite pain of it would kill her. "Don't—hurt him again, Norma!"
"But he's going off—without me," Norma wailed, rushing to the bathroom, and pinning her magnificent mass of soft dark hair into a stern knob for her bath. "Aunt Kate, I've always loved Wolf, always!" she said, passionately. "And if he really had gone away without me I think it would have broken my heart! You know how I love him! We'll catch him somewhere, I know we will! We'll telephone—or else Harry——"
She trailed into the kitchen half-dressed, ten minutes later.
"I've telephoned for a taxi, Aunt Kate, and we'll find him somewhere," she said, gulping hot coffee appreciatively. "I must—I've something to tell him. But I'll have to tell you everything in the cab. To begin with—it's all over. I'm done with the Melroses. I appreciate all they did for me, and I appreciate your worrying and planning about that old secret. But I've made up my mind. Whatever you have of letters, and papers and proofs, I want you please to do the family a last favour by burning—every last shred. I've told Chris, I won't touch a cent of the money, except what Aunt Marianna left me; and I never, never, never intend to say one more word on the subject! Thousands didn't make me happy, so why should a million? The best thing my father ever did for me was to give my mother a chance to bring me here to you!"
She had gotten into her aunt's lap as she spoke, and was rubbing her cheek against the older, roughened cheek, and punctuating her conversation with little kisses. Mrs. Sheridan looked at her, and blinked, and seemed to find nothing to say.
"Perhaps some day when it's hot—and the jelly doesn't jell—and the children break the fence," pursued Norma, "I will be sorry! I haven't much sense, and I may feel that I've been a fool. But then I just want you to remind me of Leslie—and the Craigies—or better, of what a beast I am myself in that atmosphere! So it's all over, Aunt Kate, and if Wolf will forgive me—and he always does——"
"He's bitterly hurt this time, Nono," said her aunt, gently.
Norma looked a little anxious.