“Why, Grace, I had no idea—why, child! What’s the matter? You’re as white as a sheet!”
“I must go,” said Grace in a whisper, withdrawing the hand Miss Reynolds had clasped. The door remained open and the world, a fantastically distorted world, lay outside. With slow steps she passed her bewildered friend, saying in the tone of one muttering in an unhappy dream:
“I must go! He told me to go.”
“He—who?”
The astonished Miss Reynolds, who at first thought Grace was playing a joke of some kind, watched her pass slowly down the walk to the gate and enter the waiting car. She went out upon the steps, uncertain what to do and caught a last glimpse of Grace’s face, her eyes set straight ahead, as the machine bore her away.
IV
The thought of remaining at home was unbearable, and after supper Grace telephoned Irene to ask whether she was free for the evening.
“Tommy said something about taking a drive and I’m going over to Minnie’s to meet him. You come right along. I saw Ward snatch you out of the store. Pretty cool, I call it! Tommy said he was going back East at seven, so you’re a widow once more!”
Grace left the house with her father, who was spending all his evenings at Kemp’s plant. To all questions at home as to the progress of his motor Durland replied that he guessed it would be all right. On the street-car he told Grace he was anxious to see Trenton; there were difficulties as to the motor that he wished to discuss with him. He said he had written, asking an interview as soon as possible, but that Trenton had not replied. Grace answered that she knew nothing about him and her heart sank as she remembered that Trenton was no longer a part of her life and that in the future he would come and go and she would never be the wiser.
It was all over and she faced the task of convincing herself that her love for him had been a delusion, a mere episode to be forgotten as quickly as possible. She left her father at Washington street, cheerily wishing him good luck, and took a car that ran past Minnie’s door.