Thea! I don't know but I said mo'n I ought, now."

What the chef said was of a piece with what had been more than once in
Clementina's mind; but she had driven it out, not because it might not be
true, but because she would not have it true. Her head drooped; she
turned limp and springless away. Even the heart of the tease was touched;
he had not known that it would worry her so much, though he knew that she
disliked the clerk.

"Mind," he called after her, too late, "I ain't got no proof 't he done
it."

She did not answer him, or look round. She went to her room, and sat down
in the growing dusk to think, with a hot lump in her throat.

Mrs. Atwell found her there an hour later, when she climbed to the
chamber where she thought she ought to have heard Clementina moving about
over her own room.

"Didn't know but I could help you do youa dressin'," she began, and then
at sight of the dim figure she broke off: "Why, Clem! What's the matte?
Ah' you asleep? Ah' you sick? It's half an hour of the time and--"

"I'm not going," Clementina answered, and she did not move.

"Not goin'! Why the land o'--"

"Oh, I can't go, Mrs. Atwell. Don't ask me! Tell Mrs. Milray, please!"

"I will, when I got something to tell," said Mrs. Atwell. "Now, you just