CHAPTER XX.
“LET IT REMAIN OPEN.”
Outside the door of Monk’s Lodge, Joan met Emma returning from a walk. As usual she was dressed in white, and, to Joan’s fancy, looked pure as a wild anemone in the April sun, and almost as frail. She would have passed her with a little salutation that was half bow, half courtesy, but Emma held out her hand.
“How do you do, Miss Haste?” she said, with a slight nervous tremor of her voice. “I did not know that you were up here,” and she stopped; but her look seemed to add, “And I wonder why you have come.”
“I am going to leave Bradmouth, and I came to say good-bye to Mr. Levinger, who has always been very kind to me,” Joan replied, with characteristic openness, answering the look and not the words. She felt that, in the circumstances, it was best that s
