Evelyn had stopped crying now, and could talk quite calmly.
"Do you remember, May," she said, "when he was here last, something that Donald said to you and to me about running away?"
"Yes," I said, "I remember it quite well; he mentioned it twice when I was in the room."
"Yes," she said, "so he did. Oh, May, could he have been thinking of taking the money then?"
"I do not know, dear," I said, "we must hope not; we must hope that he yielded to a sudden temptation, and that he has been sorry for it ever since."
"Oh, May, I am afraid not," said Evelyn; "do you know I seem to see Donald in quite a different light from what I did before,—more as papa has been seeing him all the time. I am afraid papa was right about him, May, and I was wrong. Ah! Poor, poor Donald!"
"Will you ring for Clemence, May?" Evelyn said, a few minutes after this, "and I will get up; I shall feel better if I am dressed and in the other room."
But the other room made very little difference in poor Evelyn's spirits. She tried to work, she tried to read, she tried to write, but all were alike impossible; her thoughts were ever busy with her trouble, and every attempt to divert them was in vain.
As the day went on, she talked much more, and it seemed a relief to her to tell me everything that her father had told her that morning.
"May," she said, "did papa tell you about the ring?"