"Perhaps Charlotte East can tell," said Eliza Tyrrett, slyly. "She has been thick with Carry lately. _I_ am not a-going to spoil sport." Charlotte took up her butter, and bending a severe look of caution on the Tyrrett girl, left the shop. Anthony Dare's reputation was not a brilliant one, and the bare fact of Caroline Mason's allowing herself to walk with him would have damaged her in the eyes of Honey Fair. As well keep it, if possible, from Mrs. Buffle and other gossips. As Charlotte crossed to her own door, she became conscious that some one was flying towards her in the dusk of the evening: a woman with a fleet foot and panting breath. Charlotte caught hold of her. "Caroline, where are you going?" "Let me alone, Charlotte East"--and Caroline's nostrils were working, her eyes flashing. "I have left their house for ever, and am going to one who will give me a better." Charlotte held her tight. "You must not go, Caroline." "I will," she defiantly answered. "I have chosen my lot this night for better or for worse. Will I stay to be taunted without a cause? To be told I am what I am not? No! If anything should happen to me, let them reproach themselves, for they have driven me on to it." Charlotte tried her utmost to restrain the wild girl. "Caroline," she urged, "this is the turning-point in your life. A step forward, and you may have passed it beyond recall; a step backwards, and you may be saved for ever. Come home with me." Caroline in her madness--it was little else--turned her ghastly face upon Charlotte. "You shan't stop me, Charlotte East! You go your way, and I'll go mine. Shall Mark and she go on at me without cause, I say, calling me false names?" "Come home with me, Caroline. You shall stay with me to-night; you shan't go back to Hetty. My bed's not large, but it will hold us." "I won't, I won't!" she uttered, struggling to be free. "Only for a minute," implored Charlotte. "Come in for a minute until you are calm. You are mad just now." "I am driven to it. There!" With a jerk she wrenched herself from Charlotte's grasp, passion giving her strength: and she flew onwards and was lost in the dark night. Charlotte East ran home. Her brothers were there. "Tom," said she, "put this butter in the cupboard for me;" and out she went again. At the end of Honey Fair, a road lay each way. Which should she take? Which had Caroline taken? She chose the one to the right--it was the most retired--and went groping about it for twenty minutes. As it happened, as such things generally do happen, Caroline had taken the other. In a sheltered part of that, which lay back, away from the glare of the gas lamps, Caroline had taken refuge. She had expected some one would be there to meet her; but she found herself mistaken. Down she sat on a stone, and her wild passion began to diminish. Nearly half an hour afterwards, Charlotte found her there. Caroline was talking to Anthony Dare, who had just come up. Charlotte grasped Caroline.