his last.

"And now, I suppose," Mrs Mallison said dully, "Mary will come home."

CHAPTER THIRTY.

A MEETING.

Mary came speeding home by the first train after receipt of the
telegraphic message, and arrived at the Cottage on the afternoon of the
following day.

A strange maid with a scared expression opened the door, and stared
aghast as the new arrival pushed past her into the dining-room.

The room was empty, and Mary stood upon the threshold looking round the
familiar scene, which seemed so strangely altered by her year's absence.
The blinds were drawn, but even in the half-lights its proportions
appeared shrunken, its furnishings shabby and poor. On the centre table
stood a bowl of spring flowers, and two or three store catalogues,
certain pages of which were marked with strips of writing paper. It
seemed to Mary that those books had lain in identically the same
positions on the morning on which she had left home, but then the marked
pages had been those of Trousseaux, and now... Instinctively she opened
the nearest volume, and shrank at the sight of monumental stones and
crosses.

The next moment the door opened, and Mrs Mallison entered the room.
From an upper room she had heard the sounds of arrival, and for the
moment the mother in her forgot everything but the fact that her child
had returned. She held out her arms, and smiled with twitching lips,
and Mary ran to her, and clung round her neck, with arms which seemed as
if they would never let go. It was not the thought of her father that
prompted that close embrace, it was the remembrance of a year of days
spent in establishments, a year of aimless hours, a year of living among
strangers, who cared nothing, noticed nothing! neither praised nor
blamed. She had tasted liberty, and liberty had been sweet, but there
was a great loneliness in her heart, and the clasp of mother arms were
as balm to a wound.

"Mother, Mother!" gasped Mary sobbing.

"Mary, Mary!" quavered Mrs Mallison in reply, then at last they drew
apart, regarding each other, with half-shy scrutiny. Mrs Mallison had
rushed into the orthodox fitments with a haste which seemed to Teresa
positively indecent, but it obviously soothed the widow to don her new
cap, and stitch muslin cuffs and collar on a black silk dress. The
result, taken in conjunction with a natural paleness of complexion, was
undoubtedly softening, and made a further appeal to Mary's heart.

"You look pale, M