"I think I ought to go home to-morrow," she said. "I've been here over a week. You'll all be sick to death of me."
"Of course, we shan't," Marie cried. She was touched by the hard note of unhappiness in her friend's voice, and stretched out her hand to her. "Don't go, Dorothy. They can't have finished with the scarlet fever yet."
"I shall have to see. I dare say I shall hear from home in the morning."
She excused herself presently on the plea of headache and went to bed. She shook hands with Feathers and kissed Marie and Miss Chester, but Marie noticed with a queer little shrinking at her heart that she seemed to avoid Chris altogether, and her thoughts went back with unwilling suspicion to the moment when she had found Dorothy crying.
"Dorothy doesn't look well," Miss Chester said, as the door closed behind the elder girl. "I really think all this golf is too much for her. She ought to take a rest and do something less strenuous."
"Knitting shawls, for instance, eh, dear?" Marie asked tenderly. The old lady looked over her glasses.
"It would do her no harm," she said severely.
237 It was only ten o'clock when Feathers left, and Chris said he would walk part of the way with him.
"I shan't be long," he said to Marie. "But it's so hot indoors, and I must get a breath of air."
She said good-night to them both in the hall, and after they had gone she stood for a moment looking at the closed door with a feeling of desolation. She had counted so much on this evening, and on seeing Feathers, and now he had gone—and nothing had happened, nothing been said!