They inquired where Eugene was, and she replied that she did not know.

They did not suspect that she had taken advantage of this lack of guardianship, and yet there was something unwonted in her manner which led them to look at each other furtively when they first noticed it.

The perfect poise of decision at which she had arrived affected their minds in some subtle fashion.

Eugene, when he returned late in the afternoon, noticed the change in her, in spite of his own perturbation.

He looked hard at her staid face, fixed into a sort of unquestioning and dignified acquiescence with misery, but he said nothing.