"It is not," replied Miss Martha warmly. "That is a very good idea of your uncle's. I hadn't heard of it. It is a very generous and proper arrangement," with growing conviction. "Boston is dreadfully overcrowded, and you'd have probably done better in Springfield, whatever it's like; but I'll stay with you now,"—Miss Martha began taking off her gloves nervously—"and help you pack up and take you over to the Association, and see you settled. The superintendent can no doubt help you to find something to do, and perhaps everything will be all right, after all."
Sylvia Lacey stretched out her hand. "Put those gloves on again, Aunt Martha. Your duty to me is done. You and Mr. Dunham can go home now."
Miss Martha's eyes snapped behind her glasses. "What do you mean? What are you going to do, then?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders carelessly. "Any one of half a dozen things. Get married, probably."
Miss Martha stared. "Are you engaged all this time and we worrying ourselves like this?"
"No, but a man, an actor, wants me to marry him. He believes I would do well on the stage."
"Sylvia Lacey, you mustn't marry an actor. You mustn't consider such a thing!" The speaker sprang to her feet and took a step forward.
"I haven't until now,"—Sylvia's white cheeks gave the lie to her nonchalant tone—"but father said he believed Nat would be good to me. I thought it very strange at the time, but he seemed much more certain that Nat would be kind than that you and Uncle Calvin would."
"Sylvia, you mustn't be willful. You're a young girl. You must let your uncle and me think for you. I am going to remain with you until I see you moved. You can't stay in this hotel alone, not a day." Miss Martha glanced about as if she expected to see some of her brother's disreputable friends leap up from behind the stuffy old armchairs.
"Go at once, please," returned the girl. "Won't you take her?" suddenly turning to Dunham appealingly. "I'm very tired."
He did not need to be convinced of it. The white face showed the nervous strain. He believed the short curls meant some recent illness. He wished himself a thousand miles away, and took a final grip on the hat he was holding.
"We're unwilling to leave you in such uncertainty," he said lamely.
Sylvia's eyes rested on his.
"Tell Uncle Calvin"—she paused, for her throat filled—"no," she added with difficulty, "just go, please."
"Sylvia, I beg of you," Miss Lacey came forward, face and voice perturbed, and attempted to take her niece's hand.
Sylvia fell back a step. "You said everything a few minutes ago, Aunt Martha. Nothing could make any difference now. Good-by. Go, or else I must."
"Why, it's impossible, it's unheard of!" Tears sprang to Miss Martha's eyes, but Dunham took her arm and led her to the door, and while a sob of anxiety struggled in her breast he hurried her to the elevator and out upon the street, and at once hailed an approaching car.
"Do you wish to go right to the station, or to do errands?" he asked.
"Oh, errands!" exclaimed Miss Lacey wildly. "Who could think of errands!"
"Well, this car will take you to the station. I have some business to attend to, but shall probably catch the same train you do."
The car stopped. Dunham helped his bewildered companion to enter, and stepping back to the sidewalk, walked half a block in the opposite direction with business-like haste. Then he turned on his heel, observed that no stoppage in the street had detained Miss Martha's noisy conveyance, and striding back to the hotel, he reëntered the dingy elevator.
He knew that there could scarcely be a more deserted, isolated spot at this hour of the day than the parlor of the old hotel; and it was as he hoped. The girl had not left it. He descried the slender black figure at once. She was clinging hopelessly with both hands to one of the sodden hangings and sobbing into its heavy folds.
He went up to her. "Pardon me. I've come back. Please don't do that."
She lifted her swollen eyes in surprise for a moment and then hid them.
"What right have you!" she murmured.
"None, but I couldn't do anything else, of course. You can see that. Come over here and sit down, please. Somebody might come in."
The girl controlled her sobs; but kept her face hidden. "I don't want to talk to you," she gasped.
"I know you don't. It makes it rather awkward. Is there any one else in Boston—any one I could go and bring to you?"
She rubbed her soft little curls into the aged hangings in a hopeless negative.
"Say!" said Dunham, in acute protest, "would you mind taking your head out of that curtain? Why, it might give you typhoid fever."
"I've just had it," replied the girl chokingly. "That's why I'm so weak and—and—Oh, if I could just telegraph to Nat!"
"If you'll come out of the curtain I'll wire Nat," responded Dunham eagerly—"that is, if it's the best thing," he added doubtfully.
"You can't wire him. He's one-nighting. I don't know where to catch him, and he couldn't come anyway."
John continued to regard her as she left her hold on the curtain and pressed a wet handkerchief to her eyes. "Come over here and sit down one minute, please. I won't stay long."
She followed reluctantly to the chair he placed. "You shouldn't stay at all," she returned. "I don't wish to trouble a perfect stranger with my woes, and except for Uncle Calvin you have no reason to be here, and—and I haven't any uncle any more."
It was pitiful to see her effort to control the pretty, grieving lips. Her soul was smarting with the shock of her discovery, and the mortification of this stranger's knowledge of it. She wished to send him out of her sight at once; but her voice failed.
"Now, I'm neither Aunt Martha nor Uncle Calvin," said John, "and I refuse to be treated as if I were. If you haven't any friends in Boston I'm sure you can make one of me for five minutes. The situation is awkward enough, and you might feel for me a bit, eh?"
"No, not if you have come to try to persuade me to do anything. Nat—Mr. Forsyth, says he is sure I could get a chance on the stage, and—and he says it would make everything easier if I married him; but my friends at home urged me so much, and said the stage was a dog's life, and persuaded me that my own people were the ones to help me now. My own people!" the speaker pressed the handkerchief to her unsteady lips again, and her eyes swam afresh.
Dunham regarded her. Of course she could get a position on the stage. Any creature so pretty always could. He pictured her in some chorus, these quivering lips reddened and the swimming eyes laughing in the shade of an outrageous hat.
"I should say the stage last myself," he returned. "Your own people are the ones. Your Uncle Calvin"—
"I haven't any."
"Well, Judge Trent, then, is what is popularly described as a dried-up old bachelor. It never occurred to him that happiness might be—that he might find a daughter in you; but he wants to do his duty by you—indeed he does," for the girl's face was discouraging, "and, by George, you ought to let him do it."
"Never! And I always bade his picture good-night. Mother loved him so, and she taught me." The last word was inaudible.
Dunham leaned forward with his hands on his knees. "Now would you mind telling me, since you haven't any one else to tell, how much money you have?"
A little determined shake of the curls. "I shouldn't think of telling you."
"Then you're a very foolish girl. You ought to have more head and not so much heart in this affair. Judge Trent is a man whom any one might be proud to claim, and if you won't behave childishly we can bring him around all right."
"Do