“No; I could not write anything. Good-bye, Phoebe.”
“And you will not see my mistress?”
“No; I cannot.”
“And you would not like me to see you back?”
“No, no; I will go alone.”
Before Phoebe could utter another word, Nan was running up the street in the direction of Mayfield Gardens.
“God did not want me to tell, and there must be a middle path—there must,” thought the child.
She got back to the house without any one missing her. She went upstairs again to the schoolroom. A moment or two later she had taken off her hat and jacket, put them away neatly in the orderly little room which nurse insisted on her keeping, and sat down by the schoolroom fire. The day had been a warm one and the fire had only been lit an hour ago, but Nan felt cold, and was grateful for its warmth. She crouched near it, shivering slightly.
“I would have done it,” she said to herself, “if Mr. Pryor had been at home; but God sent him away, and—well, I cannot do it now. I hope my conscience will not trouble me too badly. I will try to be awfully good in every other way, and I must forget this; I must—I must.”
It was a few days after Nan’s stolen visit to Mr. Pryor that great excitement reigned in the house in Mayfield Gardens. In the first place, there had come a letter which greatly concerned Augusta. This letter was from her mother, begging of Mrs. Richmond to look after Augusta for a year, for Mrs. Duncan and her husband were going to South America on special business. They would be wandering about from place to place for quite that time, and it would suit Mrs. Duncan uncommonly well if Augusta remained with her sister. Mrs. Richmond herself spoke to Augusta about it.