"Ned! Ned! I am alone!" I cried in my agony of soul. "You must--you will!--come back to me, come back to me." I bathed my eyes and hurried from the house to forget the thought, but it followed everywhere. The rain had not stopped, but it suited me to be drenched, to hold my face to the whiplash of the water snapped by the wind. I went to Meg Van Dam, who had long urged me to pay her a visit. This time I was ready to consent, for she at least was glad to have me; and before I left her I had agreed to go to her. It was dinner time when I reached home, glad that it was to be home to me no longer; the house made me shudder as a dungeon might. It was so changed since morning, seen now with different eyes. The dining room was so heavily respectable, with its fussily formal arrangements--like Uncle, for it's big; like Aunt, for it's crotchety. I suppose there must have been a scene with Ned. Aunt Frank was depressed, fitfully talkative. Milly scarcely spoke, but in the curtness with which she turned her sullen head when poor Ethel asked some question, I wasn't slow in finding a meaning. Joy begged in vain for her nightly lullaby. I couldn't respond to her "Thing, Cothin Nelly!" I'd never before noticed how like she is to her sisters. With her snubby nose and her yellow braids, she'll grow into just another white-faced doll as Milly. Miss Baker talked persistently about Bermuda; as if my exile had ever been a possibility! In all my blind whirlwind of pain, I was glad that this was the last night I should have to writhe under the click of her knitting needles, and sit opposite her large, solemn features. "A change will do you good, Frances," she purred. "By either the _Orinoco_ or the _Trinidad_ you'll have only a two days' voyage. Helen will be in her element among the coral, and Milly must come home with a coat of tan." Milly bent lower over her magazine; in an hour she hadn't turned a page. Her thin hands, like claws, that held the book, disgusted me, fascinated me! They were the hands that Ned had kissed, as he had mine; clasped and pressed, as he had--how could he! I called Aunt to me at bedtime, and told her I'd trespassed upon her kindness too long, and that Mrs. Van Dam was pressing. "But we can't let you go," she said, even while the wonder whether she might not shone through her face. "You and Meg have become friends, I know, but Bake and I feel responsible to your mother." Of course we understood each other, but neither cared to speak the truth. She had no pity, in her feeling for her own child, for the hurt I might conceal. And I don't want her pity! At least I shall no longer have to tear my heart out, meeting Ned in her house.