s of "The Haven," and how much there was to do there. She forgave me
with all her gracious charm, pressing my hand as if to show her
gratitude for a certain incident which could not be mentioned in words;
and five minutes later I was spinning alone in a taxi toward Park Lane.

CHAPTER XXIII

I had been offered the help of Celestine and Sidney's man to make up in
parcels such clothes as I wished to take for our refugees and their
menfolk; but now I determined to do all the work myself. The
bored-looking footman who opened the house-door showed no surprise or
interest on seeing her Ladyship's sister arrive in advance of the rest.
He listened respectfully but dully as I briefly explained my errand and
told him that I should need no help until I rang for my trunk and other
things to be carried downstairs. When I had made this clear, I ran up to
the room above Diana's and shut myself in, meaning to make such haste
with what I had to do as to escape with my booty, if possible, before Di
and her husband came home.

I was trembling still with excitement which clouded my mind and kept me
from thinking clearly; for I was furiously angry and desperately sad at
the same time. I said to myself that I didn't care if I never saw Diana
again; yet my heart was ready to break because we had come to the
parting of the ways. To-night, I thought, I was definitely giving up my
family, or my family were giving me up, it mattered very little which.
My father had never cared for me, therefore I had not cared for him as
most girls care for their fathers. Di had made use of me, but had never
loved me, and I had "seen through" her ever since I was a tiny child.
Lately we became almost as strangers; and yet the two had been the only
ones near to me. Breaking with them was like a small figure in a group
on a big canvas suddenly loosening itself and falling off its
background, a mere lonely bit of paint.

"What will become of me?" I wondered. "I can never go back to Ballyconal
now. Yet I can't spend the rest of my life with the Miss Splatchleys.
What shall I do when I'm not wanted there any more?"

Tears began to drop slowly from my eyes, then to rain fast over the
clothing I tried to sort. I knew it was silly to think of such things.
There would be plenty of time by and by to arrange the future. But I
could not concentrate my mind on the work in hand until, as I tossed the
neatly folded clothes about with a kind of stupid aimlessness, I