"Hush!" she said gaily. "I'll make sure she isn't awake—"
Removing her hat, she passed on into the adjoining bedroom, and stopped short with a sensation of sinking dismay. The room was empty, the bed she shared with Hattie untouched. So much was visible in the faint light entering through windows that opened on a well.
Wondering, Joan struck a light. Its first glimmer revealed to her the fact that Hattie's trunk was gone. The flare of the gas-jet disclosed greater changes in the aspect of the room, due to the disappearance of Hattie's toilet articles and knick-knacks.
Hattie had left, bag and baggage—had gone for good!
But why?
Had she discovered Joan's treachery? Or what had happened?
And in her surprise and perplexity, the girl was conscious anew of that sense of loneliness. She had been afraid to return to the one whom she had betrayed so lightly; but now she was afraid to be without her.
Going back to the adjoining room, she found Fowey standing beside the table and with a slight smile examining a sheet of paper.
"I found this lying here," he announced, handing it over—"didn't realize it was anything until I'd read half of it."
His smile was again confident, bright with premature pride of conquest. But Joan didn't heed it. She was reading rapidly what had been written, swiftly and in a sprawling hand, upon the half sheet of note-paper.