"I'll dismiss her for you," she said quietly.
Eva shivered, watching her as she moved to the door.
"Now?" she gasped.
"At once," said Rachel, but before she could touch the bell some one knocked at the door.
It was Pamela Van Citters. "I've come to say good-by," she explained. "Paul and I are going to drive back to town this afternoon."
Eva rose hastily from the dressing-table and threw herself into Pamela's arms. "Don't go!" she cried.
"It's sweet of you to ask me to stay, my dear, but think of my offspring. I haven't seen the baby for three days."
"What of it? He'll be all the more delighted to see you and he'll have cut a new tooth. Oh, Pamela, stay; Rachel's going to leave me."
Pamela turned large, startled eyes upon Rachel. "As soon as that?"
Rachel nodded; she could not speak, she felt as if a net had been spread around her feet,—a long, floating net, like those she had seen the fishermen draw up in the Sound, and that it was closing in.