"Oh yes; I will telegraph if you like." She crossed over to the table at which Tom had sat so joyfully only yesterday.
"Tell him you are going away," Mrs. Lakeman said. "Oh, Margaret, you don't know how they have loved each other all these years."
"You said he'd been infatuated so often?"
"He has always laughed at it afterwards."
Margaret took up her pen and wrote: "Stay with Lena; I do not want you. I am going away.—Margaret."
"You had better put your surname, too," Mrs. Lakeman said, and she wrote it. "I'll take it for you, dear," she said; "you don't want to go out just yet, and you don't want the landlady to see it. Now, tell me what you mean to do?" she asked, in a good, businesslike tone.
"I don't know," Margaret answered, gently. "I want to be alone and think. I have done all I could; it has been very hard to do, and I hope Lena will be happy. Please go; I feel as if I couldn't bear it any longer, unless I am alone."
Mrs. Lakeman took her in her arms and kissed her, and, though Margaret submitted, she could not help shuddering.
"It's rather a desperate game," Mrs. Lakeman thought, as she drove away; "but it's thoroughly amusing. The best way will be to insist on Tom marrying Lena at once—a special license. A man is often caught in a rebound."