will be free. I will live my own life--at last." Her
eyes shone with exultation.

"And---- Where are you going?" stammered Miss Vance,
dismayed.

"I don't know. There is so much--it has all been waiting
so long for me. There are the cathedrals--and the
mountains. Or the Holy Land. Perhaps I may try to write
again. There seems to be a dumb word or two in me.
Don't be angry with me, Clara," throwing her arms about
her cousin, the tears rushing to her eyes. "I may come
back to you and little Lucy some time. But just now I
want to be alone and fancy myself young. I never was
young."

When Lucy stole into her old friend's chamber the next
morning as usual to drink her cup of coffee with her, she
found the door open and the room in disorder, and she was
told that Mrs. Waldeaux had left London at daybreak.



CHAPTER VII

During the year which followed, Mr. Perry was forced to
return to the States, but he made two flying trips across
"the pond," as he called it, in the interests of his
magazine, always running down his prey of notorieties in
that quarter of Europe in which Miss Vance and her