ll Gertrude's mind, Conway and Willie had confided to their
mother that they wished Gertrude would not be quite so _pleasant_. She
sighed a little as she looked into Reggie's bright, open face. Girls
did not always know true gold when they saw it. Then she remembered
that Reggie had asked her a question.

"Oh, yes," she said hastily, "I was forgetting. Come in, Reggie; she
is at home this afternoon. Denys had to go to Mixham, and I persuaded
her to take Pattie with her--I am so nervous now," she added
pathetically, "and Gertrude has been busy in the kitchen all
the afternoon, but she's done now, and I believe she went to the
drawing-room to study."

"I'll go round the garden way and disturb her," said Reggie, with a
laugh.

He thought as he went round the garden that "Gertrude busy in the
kitchen all the afternoon," had an odd sound.

Gertrude had not begun to study. She sat in a deep armchair, her books
unopened on her lap, looking out upon the sunny garden, and brooding
drearily over the past, wondering sadly whether, if Maud were never,
never found, she could ever feel happy again! And if happiness did
come to her, and Maud had not come back, how terrible that would
be, for it would mean that she had forgotten Maud, forgotten her
wrong-doing; that she had become again the self-loving, self-centred
being that had lost Maud!

As Reggie's figure crossed the grass she sprang up, and her books fell
with a clatter to the ground.

"Oh, Reggie!" she said, just as her mother had done.

"Yes," said Reggie, "I've come! I only heard yesterday."

A flood of colour swept over Gertrude's face, but the room was shaded,
and she hoped Reggie would not see. What must he think of the story he
had only heard yesterday! She had wished that he might know about it.
Now she felt as if he were the only one in the world, from whom she
would gladly have hidden it.

"Sit down," she said; "all the others are out, except mother."

"I've seen her," he said quietly.

There was a pause. There seemed nothing to say, absolutely nothing!
Nothing that could be said, at least.

At last Reggie broke the silence.

"What have you done to trace her?" he asked. Perhaps it was the
easiest question he could have asked. Gertrude could answer that, and
she told him all that had been done. "I wish there was something I
could do," he said, when she paused.

"Is it your holidays?" she asked indifferently. "I'm afraid there's
nothing much going on i