miserable demoiselle.


VIII
SEVERAL BURNING QUESTIONS

The twenty-four hours of Evatt's visit troubled Janice
in recollection for many a day, and marked the beginning
of the most distinct change that had come to
her. The experience was in fact that which befalls
every one somewhere between the ages of twelve and thirty,
by which youth first learns to recognise that life is not mere
living, but is rather the working out of a strange problem compounded
of volition and necessity, accident and fatality. The
pledge of secrecy preyed upon her, the stranger's assumption
that she had bound herself distressed her, and the thought
that she had been the subject of tavern talk made her furious.
Yet she had promised concealment, she was powerless to write
to Evatt denying his pretension, and she could not counteract
a slander the purport of which was unknown to her. Had she
and Tibbie but been on terms, she might have gained some
relief by confiding her woes to her, but that young lady's visit
came to an end so promptly after the departure of Evatt that
restoration of good feeling was only obtained in the parting
kiss. For the first time in her life, Janice's head would keep
on thinking after it was resting on its pillow, and many a time
that enviable repository was called upon to dry her tears and
cool her burning cheeks. Never, it seemed to her, had man
or woman borne so great a burden of trouble.