As she passed through the hall, she stopped for a moment at the head of the stairs. The painted lady smiled at her, the painted lady who was loved by the old man in the shadowed room.
No, Hilda was not a thief. Yet as she stood there, in the cold dawn of that Thanksgiving morning, she had it in her mind to steal from the painted lady things more precious than a pearl collar or an ermine cloak or the diamonds in a crown!
Jean was having her breakfast in bed. Emily had slipped downstairs to drink an early cup of coffee with the Doctor and to warn him, "Don't tell her to-day."
"It will spoil her feast. Derry Drake is coming to dinner."
He rose and went to the window. "It's a rotten morning."
"I haven't much to be thankful for," moodily. "I am, you tell me, about to lose my daughter. I am, also, it would seem, to part company with my best nurse."
"Yes. I wanted her to take charge of things for me in France. She elects to stay here."
"You don't mean that. And I must say that I am rather glad that she is not going."
It was out at last! She had a feeling as if she had taken a cold plunge and had survived it!
"Every time I waked in the night, I thought of Jean and of how she would feel if Hilda went with you. Do you realize that if she goes, there are things that the world will say?"
His face was stern. "You are very brave to tell me that, Emily."
"It had to be said, and last night I shirked it."
"Do you think of her only as a--good nurse?"
He turned that over in his mind. "No. In a sense she's rather attractive. She satisfies a certain side of me--."
He avoided an answer to that. "When she is away I miss her."
And now Miss Emily, shaking a little, but not showing it, made him face the situation squarely.
"Have you ever thought that, missing her, you might want to marry her?"
"Have you thought that it would make her your Jean's--mother--?"
His startled look met her steadfast one. His mind flew back to Hilda as she had bent down to him the night before, that he might unfasten the necklace. He thought of the evil that her eyes saw in him, and in the rest of the world. He thought of Jean, and of her white young dreams.
"No," he said, as if to himself, "not that--"
She laid her hand on his arm, "Go by yourself--there's a big work over there, and you can do it best--alone."