There was a look on Mrs.Raleigh's face, hidden as it were behind her smile, that struck terror to Audrey's heart.

She thrust out the letter in an anguish of unconcealed suspense.
"Read it! Read it!" she implored, "and tell me what has happened--quickly, for I--I don't understand!" Mrs.Raleigh took the letter, passing a supporting arm around the girl's quivering form.
"Sit down, dear!" she said tenderly.
Audrey obeyed, but her face was still raised in voiceless supplication as Mrs.Raleigh opened the letter.

The pause that followed was terrible to her.

She endured it in wrung silence, her hands fast gripped together.
Then Mrs.Raleigh turned, and in her eyes was a deep compassion, a motherly tenderness of pity, that was to Audrey the confirmation of her worst fears.
She did not speak again.

Her heart felt constricted, paralysed.