One evening I came down to dinner a little early and, to my surprise, found my troubled maiden in possession of the drawing-room. She was evidently troubled still, and had been waiting there in the hope of seeing me alone. We were too quickly interrupted by her parents, however, and I had no conversation with her till I sat down to the piano after dinner and beckoned to her to come and stand by it. Her father had gone off to smoke; her mother dozed by one of the crackling little fires of the summer's end.
"Why didn't you come home the day you told me you meant to?"
She fixed her eyes on my hands. "I couldn't, I couldn't!"
"You look to me as if you were very ill."
"I am," the girl said, simply.
"You ought to see some one. Something ought to be done."
She shook her head with quiet despair. "It would be no use—no one would know."
"What do you mean—would know?"
"No one would understand."
