der the influence of this
powerful stimulant, she foresaw herself meeting perforce the questions
she had evaded. But also she had foreseen herself with two clear
months before her and with Cousin Julia beside her.

Now, on a sudden, all was changed. She seemed to have no choice. She
had no control over her future. She had delayed so long that the
choice was no longer hers. Her path was sharply defined. There was
nothing she could do except to disappear on the eve of Miss Pritchard's
departure for Enderby. And at that time there would be nothing to
sustain her, no moral or redeeming force about an act that was
compulsory. It was like being shown a precipice and realizing that at
an appointed time one must walk straight over its verge.

CHAPTER XXX

Mrs. Moss, who had loved her brilliant, impulsive little stepdaughter
like her own child, had given her up unwillingly. But it had been her
husband's wish that Elsie should go to her uncle; the latter could give
her advantages her stepmother could not afford; and she supposed it was
right and natural for the girl to be with her own people, even though
they had been strangers to her up to her sixteenth year.

At first her loneliness found some solace in Elsie's letters. They
were short, but seemed brimming over with happiness. Mrs. Moss didn't
get any dear idea of the household at Enderby, but it was apparently
all that the girl desired. Then gradually the letters began to fall
off, and before Christmas-time she felt a decided change in them. They
had become unsatisfactory, perfunctory; the girl seemed to be slipping
away from her. She began to wonder if Elsie were not concealing
something, and soon after Christmas was forced to the conclusion that
she was unhappy and would not acknowledge it.

She endeavored to regain the confidence that had been fully hers; she
tried in her own letters to prepare the way, to make confession easy,
but she received no response. In such circumstances letters are at
best unsatisfactory, and it was maddening to Mrs. Moss that she was at
such a distance that her warm words must grow cold in the five or six
days that elapsed between the writing and the reading.

Christmas passed, and the winter, and she was unrelieved. She was busy
with her teaching, but except when engrossed by that, was haunted by
anxiety and apprehension. She had finally decided to go East during
the long summer vacation, ill as she could afford to ma