Rotha sat down, in silence now, and gazed in Lesbia's face with her own growing white. Lesbia seemed at last overcome. "He was here last week, and he was here this week," she said. "This week!--and last week too. What day this week, Lesbia?" "This here is Friday, aint it. Blessed if I kin keep the run o' the days. Let us see--Mr. Southwode was here the last time, Tuesday." "Tuesday? And I was here studying." "Then you don't know?" said Lesbia eyeing her. "He's done gone away." "What do you mean? That can't be." "He's done gone, miss. Sailed Wednesday. I heerd 'em talking about it at dinner. His name was in the list, they was sayin'; in the papers." "Sailed Wednesday? O where to, Lesbia?" "Don' know, miss; some place where the ships goes." "England?" "Mebbe. I doesn't know all de places on dis yere arth." "How long is he going to be gone?" "Can't tell dat, miss. I haint heerd nobody say. La, I dare say he'll come back. It's as easy to come as to go. Folks is allays goin' and comin'. But if you tell Mis' Busby, then I've done gone and lost my place, Miss Rotha." Rotha stood still and said not a word more. But she turned so white that Lesbia looked on in alarm, expecting every moment she would faint. There was no faintness, however. Rotha was not one of those who lose present knowledge of misery in the weakness of a swoon. She turned white and even livid in the intensity of passion, the fury of rage and despair which held her; then, knowing that she must not betray Lesbia and that accordingly she must not meet anybody's eyes, she seized her books and rushed up stairs to her own little room. It was dark there, but so much darker in the child's heart that she never noticed that. It was cold, yet not to her, for in her soul a fire was burning, hot enough to dispense with material warmth. She never missed that. But the walls of her room did seem to her a prison, a dreadful prison, from which she must flee if there were any place to flee to. Had her only refuge failed her? Was her one heart's treasure lost to her? Was the world empty, and all gone? The bewilderment of it almost equalled the pain. Rotha held her head in both hands and tried to find some hope, or some stay for her thoughts and for her feelings.