But they watched her carefully; they allowed her no means of ending the life of which she was so weary; and so the months flew by from September to spring, and it was almost a year since Dainty had left her home so gladly for the country visit that had ended so disastrously, and with such a veil of mystery over her strange fate.
"Where is Annette? Where is she?
Does anybody know?"
CHAPTER XXXII.
IT WAS THE OVERFLOWING DROP OF SORROW IN THE CUP THAT ALREADY BRIMMED OVER.
"Alone with my hopeless sorrow,
No other mate I know!
I strive to awake tomorrow,
But the dull words will not flow.
I pray—but my prayers are driven
Aside by the angry Heaven,
And weigh me down with woe!"
Young, beautiful, penniless, and alone in the world! Oh, what a cruel fate!
Dainty realized it in all its bitterness when she arrived in Richmond that dull October day, and found the first snow of the season several inches deep on the ground, making her shiver with cold in her thin summer gown and straw hat.
But her heart was warm with the thought of the dear mother she was going to rejoin.
What a glad reunion it would be for both in spite of her bitter troubles, when, clasped in that dear mother's arms, she should lay her weary head on that dear breast, and sob out all her grief to sympathizing ears.
She had a little money in a small purse that Franklin had forced her to take as a loan, and she hired a cab to take her to her old home, where she had not a doubt of still finding her mother.