She looked at Laurel, who had never spoken one word yet. The girl was crouching in a low seat, like one overwhelmed with sudden grief. She lifted a white face full of desperate trouble, and somber, heavy, dark eyes up to Clarice.
"Oh, Clarice, do not ask me," she wailed. "I do not want to go! I cannot, I will not leave Eden."
And with that passionate denial, Laurel Vane's little feet turned aside into that luring path of sin whose roses hide so many cruel thorns.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
"I do not want to leave Eden," repeated the dead author's daughter, passionately. "Do not ask me, Clarice! I will not go!"
Clarice Wells gazed at the pale face and somber dark eyes in alarm. Had this sudden good news turned the young lady's brain?
She went up to Laurel and shook her gently by the arm.
"Miss Vane, I do not think you understand," she said; "your probation here is over. We do not need to keep up this wretched farce any longer. Mr. Wentworth has secured his fine appointment abroad, and his wife wishes for us to go with her. Do you realize it, Miss Vane? To go abroad—to be like the sister of Mrs. Wentworth—is it not a glorious reward for the service you have done her?"
But Laurel, gazing drearily before her into vacancy, answered obstinately: