Sheer terror at her awful position froze Virginie to an immovable statue for a moment. It seemed almost unbelievable, like the situation in some terrible dream. Could it actually be true? She knew not what to say, what to think, what to do. Her brain absolutely refused to work, her body to move.

It was Melanie herself who broke the spell. "What are you doing here?" she whispered. The sound of her voice released Virginie from the nightmare of immovable terror. A sudden determination was born in her, a wild impulse to throw herself entirely on the mercy of this strange, silent woman whose sympathy she had sometimes felt, though it had never been expressed. It was, she also realized, her only course now.

195"Oh, Melanie! I can stand it all no longer! I am going to go away. I am going with friends who will love me and be kind to me. And to show my gratitude to them for taking me away from this terrible place, I am going to restore to them what she has stolen—this! It is all I can do. Help me, Melanie! I think you—care for me a little, do you not? I have always thought so. Do not drag me back again into this horrible life!" She crept over and clasped both arms about the woman's neck.

Melanie caught her breath in surprise. The contact of the girl's clinging body and the clasp of her soft young arms seemed to have a curious effect on the stern, repressed woman. Tears started to her eyes and her breath came in little gasps. She raised her arms and for an instant it seemed as if she were about to push the girl away. Then, to Virginie's surprise, she suddenly clasped her in a convulsive embrace.

"My little heart! The only baby I ever had to love!" she murmured brokenly.

196Virginie was quick to seize her advantage. "Oh, Melanie, help me to get away from this terrible house. I can endure it no longer. I have suffered too much. You know what I have suffered. And now, at last, I have the opportunity to get away from it all. Do not prevent it, dear Melanie. Do not tell her! And I will love you always. Will you do this one thing for me?"

The woman hesitated for a long, tense moment. Then she shrugged her shoulders and pushed the clinging girl a little way from her.

"I owe much to—her—everything practically," she said. "My existence almost, and the lives of my family. My mother and my little sisters would have died of starvation had it not been for her. She saved us all, but she has made me pay a terrible price. She owns me, body and soul. I have done despicable things for her—because I had to. But one thing has been harder for me than all the rest—her treatment 197of you, my little Virginie, in these last four terrible years. I have loved you always, from a baby, when you were left motherless. I have felt all that she has made you suffer. Yet what could I do? I was helpless.

"But now you wish to escape, to get away from it all. Well, you shall. It will perhaps help to ease my conscience that I have done at least one good deed. I will leave the way clear. You shall take the paper if you wish—and go. I only pray you may be happy at last. Madame shall never know how you got away. But wait just one moment. There is something I wish to give you before you go. Stay where you are and I will be back immediately."

Virginie, only too grateful for the turn affairs had taken, consented to remain where she was till Melanie came back, and the woman hurried away in the direction of the kitchen. But Melanie was gone what seemed a very long time. The girl began to grow impatient and 198even alarmed at the delay. What if Madame should take a notion to call her now? What could Melanie be about?

And even as this passed through her mind, the languid voice of Madame floated down the stairs, calling to her to come up and read aloud and fan her till she got to sleep. In an agony of anxiety, Virginie stood, reluctant to answer, yet scarcely daring not to, till at length Melanie came hurrying back.

"Here it is," she whispered, and crushed a scrap of paper into Virginie's hand. "Now go!" she ended, pointing to the door. "I will tell her that you are not in the house. Have no fear and—good-by!"

They clasped each other in a last embrace. Then Virginie, the precious Crimson Patch clutched to her heart, slipped silently out of the door that Melanie held open and fled away across the lawn. And ere the door was closed, she had reached the edge of the woods and flung herself into the arms Patricia held out to her.

199It was a mad ride back to the city, a ride in which they broke the speed-limit many times and slowed down to normal pace as the outskirts of the town appeared. Virginie sat with Patricia on the rear seat. So exhausted nervously was she, that she could say almost nothing, and only lay back with her eyes closed and her hand clasped in Patricia's. And Patricia was sensible enough not to urge her to talk, though she was burning with curiosity to know how the girl had made her escape with the Crimson Patch. The precious sketch now lay securely hidden, and she longed for the moment when she could restore it to her father.

And the thought of her father brought her suddenly face to face with the proble............