She copied the address, thanked the shop-woman profusely, and gave her half-a-crown for her trouble. Lunch hour at Beaconsfield Gardens was long past, so Prudence ate a bun, drank a glass of milk, and thought she had done a good morning's work.
The chief drawback was that she should now have to keep Augusta concealed for at least another day, instead of being able to smuggle her out of the house that night as she had hoped. It was a risk, but she had no alternative, much as she dreaded the secret in some way getting out. She found Augusta sleeping. A vague hope had sprung up in her breast that on her return she might discover her sister in her normal condition, and be able to look back on the events of the night as a bad dream. She was doomed to disappointment. It was all but too real. Without disturbing the infant, at whom she gazed for a time with mingled pity and aversion, she sat down and wrote at once to X. Y. Z., asking that respectable married woman if she were still willing to undertake the care of a baby, and if she would write, or wire by return, appointing a place of meeting, as there was a little baby girl she would like to entrust to her motherly care.
