Agony's mind from seeing it on that other occasion. In a panic she
realized that the danger of being discovered was even greater than she
had thought, since Mary also wrote to Miss Amesbury. Was it not possible
that Mary had mentioned the robin incident in this letter? It now seemed
to Agony that Miss Amesbury's manner had been different toward her in
the last few days, on the trip. She seemed less friendly, less cordial.
Several times Agony had looked up lately to find Miss Amesbury regarding
her with a keen, grave scrutiny and a baffling expression on her face.
To Agony's tortured fancy these instances became magnified out of all
proportion, and the disquieting conviction seized her that Miss Amesbury
knew the truth. The thought nearly drove her mad. It tormented her until
she realized that there was only one way in which she could still the
tumult raging in her bosom, and that was by finding out for certain if
Mary had really told.

With shaking fingers she slipped the letter out of the open envelope,
and with cheeks aflame with shame at the thing she was doing, she
deliberately read Miss Amesbury's letter. It was much like the one Mary
had written to Jo Severance, full of clever descriptions of the places
she was seeing, and it made no mention either of the robin or of her.
With fingers shaking still more at the relief she felt, she put the
letter back into the envelope and replaced it between the sketches.
Then, trembling from head to foot at the reaction from her panic, she
turned her back upon the table and sat up against the railing, holding
her head in her hands and looking down at the fair sunlit river with
eyes that saw it not.

Miss Amesbury returned by and by and was so evidently pleased to see her
that Agony concluded she must have been mistaken in fancying any
coldness on her part during the last few days.