"Rufus! How can you say that to me? If I had not trusted you utterly, would I be here to-night? If you had a mother, you would understand how perfectly dreadful it is to—"
As she hesitated for words, a hotel official came towards them.
"Are you Mr. R. H. Keller, sir? If so, you are wanted at the office telephone."
"Confound the fellow!" muttered Keller. Then, in a gentler tone, "Don't let that frighten you, Daisy. It is a business call that I have been expecting; but it comes at an inopportune time, of course. I shall be back in a very few minutes."
Left to herself, the girl walked back and forth in front of the fire, seeming to catch her breath in convulsive little sobs. She was so near the couch that Mrs. Dunlap could have put out her hand and touched her. When that good woman saw a pair of small hands clenched and heard a low moan, she came suddenly to a sitting posture and in a moment more was speaking in a low tone.
"Will you forgive me, dear? I am the mother of a precious girl who was about your age when God called her home. And I miss her so! I cannot help seeing that you are in trouble. May I not play mother to you for a little while and try to comfort you?"
But the girl's face at that moment expressed such abject terror, that she made haste to add:
"There is nothing to be frightened over, dear; this is a quiet, entirely respectable house, and your husband will be back in a few moments." It was the probing word that this student of human nature had resolved should open her way, and it succeeded.
"He is not my husband!" the girl exclaimed. "Not yet," she added quickly. "We were to have been married as soon as the train reached our destination; but the train was delayed; we could not go on; and there were no rooms to be had without this awful waiting! I wish now that we had not—" She stopped abruptly, then began again.
"I know I must appear very silly indeed to a stranger. But I cannot seem to help it. And I cannot explain, either, why it should suddenly seem so perfectly dreadful to me, but it does! I am so used to traveling with my mother; I cannot get away from the thought of how perfectly awful it would seem to her if she knew that I—"