"Whatever course you
consider, that idea must be dismissed."

"Whatever course I consider," repeated Miss Lacey bitterly. "Judge
Trent has no business to leave all the considering to me. It's
cowardly, and it's mean, and I don't care one bit if you tell him I
said so!"

"I shan't," returned Dunham. "He has sent me. He is prepared to do
something, anything in reason that you think best."

After this Miss Lacey's problem descended heavily upon her, and she
averted her head and looked gloomily at the flying landscape; so Dunham
opened his magazine and read until they reached Boston.

CHAPTER IV

HOTEL FRISBIE

The Frisbie being a commercial house in a crowded business centre, Miss
Lacey was glad of Dunham's safe conduct amid clanging bells and
interlacing traffic wagons. She followed him through the dark hall of
the hotel and into an elevator. Leaving this, they entered the
depressing stretches of a long parlor whose stiff furniture and
hangings clung drearily against a harassing wall paper as dingy as
themselves. Finding the room empty, Miss Lacey began to speak excitedly
as soon _as_ they were seated and Dunham had sent the bell-boy on his
errand.

"Exactly the sort of a hotel my brother Sam would have come to!" she
said. "I wondered why Sylvia chose it. Like as not he's brought her
here before."

Then her lips snapped together, for she remembered she was not going to
speak slightingly of her brother before a stranger.

"Too bad he was not the sort of man with whom you and Judge Trent could
have been in sympathy," replied Dunham civilly. "It would have made the
present situation easier."

"Then Calvin has told you about it," returned Miss Martha, with mingled
relief and resentment, "and you understand why we can't feel anything
except a painful duty in this matter. If Sylvia had stayed West like a
reasonable being, instead of rushing on to Boston without our
permission, we would have helped her what we could--at least the judge
would. It would have been a great deal simpler to send a little money
to Springfield, Illinois, than to have the worry of the girl right here
with us--neither of us wanting her,--we couldn't be expected to." Miss
Lacey's tongue was loosened now and all reserves broken down. "I'm not
in a position to assume the care of anybody, and as for Judge Trent,
you know how set and peculiar he is, and besides that, my brother
always made his wife perfectly miserable"--

"It's a lie!"