Daisy did not hear the last part of the sentence, and, bidding him
good-night, she went back to the hotel as swiftly as she had left it,
while the doctor stood watching the flutter of her white dress,
wondering how she found it out, and if she would "tell and raise thunder
generally."
"Of course not. I know her better than that," he said to himself. "Poor
woman [referring then to Julia], nothing, I fear, can help her now."
Meanwhile Daisy reached the hotel, and without going to her own room,
bade Sarah tell her the way to No. ----.
"What! Oh, Miss McDonald! You surely are not--" Sarah gasped, clutching
at the dress, which her mistress took from her grasp, saying: "Yes, I am going to see that lady. I know her, or of her, and I'm not
afraid. Must we let her die alone?"
"But your face--your beautiful face," Sarah said, and then Daisy did
hesitate a moment, and, glancing into a hall mirror, wondered how the
face she saw there, and which she knew was beautiful, would look scarred
and disfigured as she had seen faces in New York.
There was a momentary conflict, and then, with an inward prayer that
Heaven would protect her, she passed on down the narrow hall and knocked
softly at No. ----, while Sarah stood wringing her hands in genuine
distress, and feeling as if her young mistress had gone to certain ruin.