"Let us go away," said Hobbs. "You ought never to have come in at all. You think yourself much stronger than you are."
"Yes, let us go," said Dora.
They straightway went home.
Dora remained pensive all the evening. She scarcely opened her lips again that day. The book she tried to read fell again and again from her hands. When she noticed Hobbs look at her, she said, "I tell you it is nothing. I was wrong to go into the house, and I shall not do it again. But how was I to know that, when I opened the garden door, I should see on the lawn" ...
She broke off, looked once more at Hobbs, and could no longer contain herself. Tears choked her respiration; she was stifling. Sobbing like a child, she hid her grief in the good woman's bosom.
"It shall never happen again, Hobbs; don't scold me, it is all over."
Next day she was calm again but weak; and Hobbs, without telling her, sent a telegram to Gabrielle to beg her to come to her dear mistress, that day if possible.
Gabrielle lost no time in responding to the call; but she could not discover in Dora any symptoms that were at all disquieting. Dora from that day avoided Elm Avenue in her walks.
She had set bravely to work at her painting; and as the weeks went on she seemed to pick up the dropped thread of life, and gradually to attach herself to it again. Her health did not suffer in the new existence, and her courage remained firm. At the end of a month she had done the picture of the little Italian boy, and sold it for twenty-five guineas.
"Look, Hobbs," she cried, on returning home; "look what I have earned—twenty-five guineas! Well-earned money that!"