--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."