"Forgive me, Gretchen!" she murmured. "You—you—know how stupid I am."
It seemed a long time before Gretchen spoke. "I shall not come down to-night," she answered calmly. "It might complicate matters perhaps. Say I have a headache, please. I shall arrange to go by the first train to-morrow. If you think you can invent any reason for this to Cousin Mary, it might be just as well. If not—it doesn't matter much."
Cecily stood motionless till the door had opened, closed again, and the room was empty.
Then with a helpless movement, she sank down on the floor before the fire, her fair head buried in the cushions of the easy chair, to stifle her sobs.
"I can't think about Gretchen. I can't think about any one but him," she whispered to herself brokenly. "What shall I do? I didn't make myself. It isn't fair. I should have been wretched if I'd ever been his wife. He would have been ashamed of me. And yet—yet!"
Presently she rose wearily; she poured out water and bathed her eyes, and then arranged her hair carefully before the glass.
In a few minutes, except that she was terribly pale, all traces of violent grief had vanished.
Yet to herself she looked so strange that she shuddered to see her own reflection in the glass, there was something about it that was so changed.
When she turned away, it seemed as though a mask had fallen upon a trembling living face. The gong sounded, and she went quietly downstairs; it was not till the next morning that her mother knew that the engagement was at an end. *****
Mrs. Yeo had come up to town from her country house, on
