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For some moments Elsie stood in the dingy office turning the card over in her fingers, wondering what it could mean. Greatly as she had mistrusted Carney, she did not entertain the same feelings towards Dora. It seemed impossible the young and timid girl, with the frank, innocent face, could be the daughter of the sorry blackguard who made a living by robbing ignorant girls with a fancy for the stage. Elsie would have been puzzled to explain why she herself had been lured in that direction. The only child of a scholarly country parson, she had seen nothing of the world, and all her ideas of the Theatre had been drawn from novels which had presented the pleasant side of the picture.
Had Elsie realised half the perils and privations of the stage, she would have shrunk appalled from the prospect. As it was, she had had her lesson. She was quite cured now. She wished to have nothing further to do with her old ambition.