She felt doubtful whether she might not have done wrong about thus sending her dress back, but what else could she have done?  If she had bought a box in which to put it, she would have had to carry it with her, and perhaps the dress might have been found during her absence from her room, and she suspected because of it.  At any rate, it was too late now, and she felt sure the young man would understand.  She hoped it would not inconvenience him especially to get rid of it.  Surely he could give it to some charitable organization without much trouble.

At her first waking, in the early gray hours of the morning, she had looked her predicament calmly in the face.  It was entirely likely that it would continue indefinitely; it might be, throughout her whole life.  She could now see no way of help for herself.  Time might, perhaps, give her a friend who would assist her, or a way might open back into her old life in some unthought-of manner, but for a time there must be hiding and a way found to earn her living.

She had gone carefully over her own accomplishments.  Her musical attainments, which would naturally have been the first thought, were out of the question.  Her skill as a musician was so great, and so well known by her enemy, that she would probably be traced by it at once.  As she looked back at the hour spent at Mrs. Bowman’s piano, she shuddered at the realization that it might have been her undoing, had it chanced that her enemy passed the house, with a suspicion that she was inside.  She would never dare to seek a position as accompanist, and she knew how futile it would be for her to attempt to teach music in an unknown city, among strangers.  She might starve to death before a single pupil appeared.  Besides, that too would put her in a position where she would be more easily found.  The same arguments were true if she were to attempt to take a position as teacher or governess, although she was thoroughly competent to do so.  Rapidly rejecting all the natural resources which under ordinary circumstances she would have used to maintain herself, she determined to change her station entirely, at least for the present.  She would have chosen to do something in a little, quiet hired room somewhere, sewing or decorating or something of the sort, but that too would be hopelessly out of her reach, without friends to aid her.  A servant’s place in some one’s home was the only thing possible that presented itself to her mind.  She could not cook, nor do general housework, but she thought she could fill the place of waitress.

With a brave face, but a shrinking heart, she stepped into a drug-store and looked up in the directory the addresses of several employment agencies.

[Illustration]

VI

It was half past eleven when she stepped into the first agency on her list, and business was in full tide.

While she stood shrinking by the door the eyes of a dozen women fastened upon her, each with keen scrutiny.  The sensitive color stole into her delicate cheeks.  As the proprietress of the office began to question her, she felt her courage failing.