and years, and pictured Maud as never coming
back, but growing up somewhere, somehow, with somebody. Truly it was
worse than death.

Gladly would they have pulled down their blinds and darkened the house
and put on mourning.

When Jerry died, it had not been like this. They wept and sorrowed for
him, but they laid him to rest in sure and certain hope of a joyful
resurrection. He was safe. It was the uncertainty of Maud's fate,
her surroundings, her associates, the awful uncertainty of everything
concerning her, that made this trial so unbearable, that it seemed to
every one of them that they could not bear it for another day.

Yet God knew. The only comfort they had, came to them in that thought.

Their friends were kindness itself; every sort of sympathy, except
the sympathy of flowers, was offered them. Special prayer was made in
church for those who were "any ways afflicted or distressed," for
the story was in every one's mouth, and mothers with little children
guarded them jealously, and thought of what they would feel if one of
them was taken from them as Maud had been.

But outside of her own home no sympathy was shown to Gertrude.

The place rang with her name. Mrs. Parsons had gone about with her
story of the handsome young man in the down train, the meeting with
whom Gertrude had not even allowed her little sister to witness, and
the stories grew and grew on that foundation, till every picnic or
tennis party that Gertrude had attended that summer, was transformed
into a separate flirtation or supplied an anecdote to Gertrude's
disadvantage.

She had rejoiced at knowing everybody in Old Keston who was worth
knowing, but now she wished sadly that she was utterly unknown. She
felt that she was pointed at and whispered about, as "the girl that
lost her little sister."

Pauline Stacey gathered up all the stories and recounted them to
Gertrude with an apologetic air that meant nothing, but covered her
real enjoyment in the telling of the gossip, and Gertrude had not the
heart to stop her.

After all, what did it matter? Perhaps it was best to know the worst
that was being said. No one could blame her more than she blamed
herself; she _had_ lost little Maud through meeting Cecil Greyburne
and she had done it secretly. Only she hoped that all these other
false stories would not reach her home people's ears.

And not one friend of hers had offered her any sympathy. She felt it
keenly. Even Pauline only trou