“I know very well what you mean,” said Mrs. Enderby. “You mean that you will keep faith with me no longer. I saw that. You wished to run off and tell your story to some one this afternoon. I stopped that. After this, I cannot stop you any longer. You will tell, but I think no one will listen to you. I shall deny it, and no one will be likely to listen to the word of a discharged employee.” Lexy had grown very pale. “I see!” she said slowly. “Then you’re going to—” “You are discharged,” interrupted Mrs. Enderby, “because I do not like to have my daughter’s companion running into the park to meet a young man.” “I see!” said Lexy again. And nothing more. All the warmth of her anger had gone, and in its place had come an overwhelming depression. For all her sturdiness and courage, she was young and generous and sensitive, and those words of Mrs. Enderby’s hurt her cruelly. She sat very still, looking out of the window. They had left the city now, and were on the Boston road. It was a sweet, fresh April day, and under a bright and windy sky the countryside was showing the first soft green of spring. Lexy remembered. She remembered the things she had so valiantly tried to forget—the dear, happy days that were past, spring days like this, in her own home, with her mother and father; early morning rides on her little black mare, and coming home to the old house, to the people who loved her; her father’s laugh, her mother’s wonderful smile, the friendly faces of the servants. She was not old enough or wise enough as yet, for these memories to be a solace to her. They were pain—nothing but pain. There was no one now to love her, or even to be interested in her. She had cut herself off from her old friends and gone out alone, like a poor, rash, gallant little knight-errant, into the wide world to seek her fortune. Caroline had disappeared, and Mrs. Enderby had dismissed her with savage contempt. She would have to go out now and look for a new job. She straightened her shoulders. “This won’t do!” she said to herself. “It’s disgusting, mawkish self-pity, and nothing else. I’m young and healthy, and I can always find a job. What I want to think about now is Caroline, and what I ought to do for her.” So she did begin to think about Caroline. The first thought that came into her head was such an extraordinary one that it startled her. “Anyhow, she’s a pretty lucky girl!” Lucky? Caroline, who had lived like a prisoner, and who had now so strangely disappeared, lucky—simply because a sunburned, blue-eyed young man was so miserably anxious about her? “I suppose he’s thinking about her this minute,” Lexy reflected; “and I’m sure nobody in the world is thinking about me. Well, I don’t care!” VI