Then, with bowed head,
she glided from the room without a word.
Miss Burton caught up with her in the hall-way. "You are ill, Miss
Mayhew," she said, with gentle solicitude.
"Yes," Ida replied, in the same stony, repellant manner; "but you
are not a physician, Miss Burton. Good evening." And she went
swiftly up to her own room, as if determined to speak with no one
else that evening.
Chapter XXXVI. Temptation's Voice
Van Berg had been so near that he could not help overhearing Mrs.
Mayhew's words which had led to the abrupt and silent departure of
her daughter from the parlor.
"There is some misunderstanding here," he thought, "whose effects
are becoming outrageously cruel. The poor girl was driven away
from the supper-table, and now she is driven out of the parlor.
She has been an anomaly from the moment I saw her, and I now mean
to fathom the mystery. Her exquisite face indicates that she
is almost desperate from some kind of trouble. She is becoming
ill--she is wasting under it. Sibley would be a fatal malady to
any respectable girl, but I must give up all pretence of skill at
diagnosis if he is the cause; for were her heart set on him why the
mischief can't she go to him with all her old reckless flippancy?
There is no need of any elopement, as Ik fears.
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