"What is he like?" she demanded; as Dorothy had done of Sister Celestine. In her answer Dorothy paraphrased the Sister. "How can I tell you, when I have been acquainted with him only ten minutes?" Frances leaped to conclusions as she herself had done. "I know what that means--it means that he's horrid. Is he very horrid?" "I didn't say he was horrid." "No, but you didn't say he wasn't. You might at least tell me what he looks like. Dolly, do!" And Dolly did. She painted Mr Emmett exactly as he had appeared to her. She had a pretty knack of description; by the time the portrait was finished Miss Vernon was gazing with wide-open eyes. "Why," she cried, "he must be perfectly hideous!" "He is not," admitted Dorothy, "what some people would call good-looking." "Fancy going you don't know where with such a man as that!--you who have always said that in a man you must have beauty of mind, and soul, and form!" Dorothy bent over the frock she was folding. "We have been taught that a plain casket may contain a priceless jewel." She might have been taught it; yet she doubted if Mr Emmett was a casket of that kind. Before long she was sure that he was not. Her box, whose appearance produced uncomplimentary remarks from her guardian, was fastened on the top of the car; presently she had quitted the convent, with all her worldly possessions. Mr Emmett was his own driver. She sat beside him, on the front seat, while the chauffeur sat behind. She would have preferred to have had it the other way round, but it was settled for her without her having a voice in the matter. A big coat was slipped over her shoulders; she was on the seat; a rug was wrapped round her knees; they were off; before she clearly realised what had happened; certainly before she had said all the adieux she would have liked to say. It was all like some strange dream; whose strangeness was accentuated by the subsequent flight of the throbbing monster through the air. What was the name of the town at which they stayed that first night she never knew. She had not curiosity enough to ask; no one volunteered the information. After dinner, which was to her a wholly unaccustomed feast, at which she ate scarcely anything, in spite of Mr Emmett's well-meant gibes and jeers, she stole up to bed as soon as she could; to a big bed; in a big room, in the old inn, there she lay, a lonely, forlorn maiden; thinking, puzzling, doubting, wishing, with all her heart, that she was back again in the safe shelter of the convent. She wished it often during the days and weeks which followed. She was a young girl, and, like a young girl, all agog to stand on tiptoe, if needs be, and open the windows which would enable her to look into the house of life. Under normal circumstances, that motor cruise might have been to her one long delight; but the circumstances were abnormal; so that for long afterwards a motor car stood for her as a sort of synonym for a nightmare.