CHAPTER XII.
A DESPERATE CHANCE.
For a few hours that day Marion remained quietly in her room. She was not expected on duty, and it was fortunate for her that they could spare her.
She had returned the picture of Reginald Brookes without a word to Miss Williams, but the revelation it had brought to her distressed her beyond expression.
“It must be a mistake,” she whispered over and over. “The thing is impossible! It is too utterly horrible!”
Then the dying girl’s words came back to her distinctly. On her deathbed it was not probable that Kittie would have told a falsehood.
Marion was glad when the batch of letters was handed to her. They would serve to take her mind from this dreadful subject. The first letter was from Dollie, telling of her success as a typewriter.
“I am getting on famously,” she wrote, “and as my employer is old and bald, Ralph has not yet become jealous. Miss Allyn and I love our little flat better every day, and the only thing we miss that would make us perfectly happy is the daily companionship of my darling sister.”
Marion smiled very happily as she folded the letter.
“Dear Dollie! She is perfectly happy, and, oh! I am so glad for her. Not for worlds would I darken her life with so much as a glimpse of the misery I am witnessing!”