“Aunt Francesca,” she began, without preliminary, “I’ve got to go away.”

“Why, dear, and where?  For how long?”

“Because I’m so tired.  Things have been hard for me—­over there, lately —­and I don’t care where I go.”

“I see,” returned Madame, tenderly.  “You want to go away for a rest.  You’ve needed it for a long time.”

“Yes,” Rose nodded, swinging easily into the lie that did not deceive either.  “Oh, Aunt Francesca, can I go to-day?”

“Surely—­at any hour you choose.”

“And you’ll—­make it right?”

“Indeed I will.  I’ll just say that you’ve been obliged to go away on business—­to look after some investments for both of us, and I hope you’ll stay away long enough to get the rest and change you’ve needed for almost a year.”

“Oh, Aunt Francesca, how good you are!  But where?  Where shall I go?”

Madame had been thinking of that.  She knew the one place where Rose could go, and attain her balance in solitude, untroubled by needless questions or explanations.  With the feeling of the mother who gives her dead baby’s dainty garments to a living child sorely in need, she spoke.

“To my house up in the woods—­the little house where love lived, so long ago.”

Rose’s pale lips quivered for an instant.  “What have I to do with love?”

“Go to the house where he lived once, and perhaps you may find out.”

“I will—­I’ll be glad to go.  If I could make the next train, could you arrange to have a trunk follow me?”

“Of course.  Go on, dear.  I know how it happens sometimes, that one can’t stay in one place any longer.  I suffered from wanderlust until I was almost seventy, and it’s a long time since you’ve been away.”

“And you’ll promise not to tell anybody?”

“I promise.”

While Rose was packing a suit-case, Madame brought her a rusty, old-fashioned key, and a card on which she had written directions for the journey.  “I’ve ordered the carriage,” she said, “and I’ll drive down with you to see you safely off.”

After the packing was completed and while there was still nearly an hour to wait before the carriage would come, Rose locked her door, and, after many failures, achieved her note: 

“My dear Allison: 

“You don’t know how glad I am for you and how glad I shall be all the rest of my life.  I’ve hoped and dreamed and prayed from the very beginning that it might be so, and I believe that, in time, you’ll have back everything you have lost.

“Now that you no longer need me, I am going away to attend to some necessary business for Aunt Francesca and myself, and perhaps to rest a little while in some new place before I go back to my work.

“Of course our make-believe engagement expires automatically now, and I hope you’ll soon find the one woman meant to make you happy.  I am glad to think that I’ve helped you a little when you came to a hard place, for the most that any one of us may do for another is to smooth the road.