But nothing broke it. Mr. Enderby ate his breakfast, and his wife chatted affably with him while she glanced over her mail. The sunshine poured into the room, gleaming on silver and linen, and on the cheerful young parlor maid moving quietly about her duties. It was a morning just like other mornings; and, in spite of herself, Lexy’s feeling of dread and oppression began to lighten. Mr. Enderby was so thoroughly unperturbed, Mrs. Enderby was so serene and majestic, the house was so bright and pleasant in the spring morning, that it was hard to believe that anything could be really amiss. “But I don’t care!” she thought sturdily. “_I_ know there is!” Mr. Enderby finished his breakfast and rose, and, as usual, his wife accompanied him to the front door. Alone in the dining room, Lexy made haste to finish her own meal. Just as she pushed back her chair, Mrs. Enderby returned. “I shall ring, Annie,” she told the parlor maid, and the girl disappeared. Then she turned to Lexy. “The letter has come,” she said. Lexy stared at her with such an expression of amazement and dismay that Mrs. Enderby smiled. “You are very young,” she said. “You wish always for the dramatic. When you have lived as long as I, you will see that such things do not happen.” She spoke kindly, and Lexy saw in her dark eyes a look of weariness and pain. “No, my child,” she went on. “In this life it is always the same things that happen again and again. At twenty, one breaks the heart for a man; at forty, one breaks the heart for one’s child. There is only that—and money. Love and money—nothing else!” Lexy felt extraordinarily sorry for Mrs. Enderby; but even yet she couldn’t quite believe that Caroline could have done such a thing. “But do you mean that she’s really—that she’s—” she began. “See, then!” said Mrs. Enderby. “Here is the letter!” Lexy took it from her, and read: Chere Maman: I only beg you and papa to forgive me for what I have done; but I knew that if I told you, you would not have let me go. When you get this I shall be married. To-morrow I shall write again, to tell you where I am, and to beg you to let me bring my husband to you. Oh, please, dear, dear mother and father, forgive me! Your loving, loving daughter, Caroline. “You see!” said Mrs. Enderby. “It is as I told you.” There were tears in Lexy’s eyes as she put the letter back into the envelope. “It doesn’t seem a bit like Caroline, though,” she remarked. Mrs. Enderby smiled again, faintly, and held out her hand for the letter. Lexy returned it to her, with an almost mechanical glance at the postmark—“Wyngate, Connecticut.” All her defiance had vanished. She was obliged to admit now that Mrs. Enderby was wise, and that she herself was— “A little fool!” said Lexy candidly to herself. IV