Christine began to cry.
"Oh, I don't know—I don't know," she sobbed. "I am so miserable—I wish I were dead."
Gladys laid a hand on her bowed head.
"You're so young, Christine," she said sadly. "Somehow I don't believe you'll ever grow up." She had not got the heart to tell her that she thought this six months separation could do no good at all—that it would only tend to widen the breach already between them.
She was a pretty good judge of character; she knew quite well what sort of a man Jimmy Challoner was. And six months—well, six months was a long time.
"Mr. Kettering knows Jimmy's brother," Christine said presently, drying her eyes. "So I suppose if he comes to live anywhere near here, he will know what—what is the matter with—with me and Jimmy, and he'll write and tell Horace."
"And then Jimmy will get his allowance stopped, and serve him right," said Gladys bluntly.
Christine cried out in dismay:
"Oh, but that would be dreadful! What would he do?"
"Work, like other men, of course."