somehow the letters were short and unsatisfactory and spoke only of
the most casual on-the-top-of-things topics. Reggie wondered over it
in silence. He hated writing scolding letters, and like Tom Green,
he felt that no amount of talking or writing could bring love, and
at first he only felt the miss of the regular correspondence, without
seeking for a reason other than the excuse that Gertrude must be
extra busy at school, or that she had fresh duties laid upon her
since Denys's engagement, of which he had heard a full account before
Gertrude had thought of reducing her correspondence.

He little dreamed that Gertrude herself missed the writing of those
old confidential letters far more than she had expected. She had
always saved up all the little experiences and jokes of school and
home to tell Reggie, and now it was very dull to be always pulling
herself up to remember to make her letters short and few and casual.

But when Easter Monday and his birthday arrived together, without
bringing any birthday remembrance other than a letter from his old
chum, Charlie Henchman, Reggie's heart went down to a depth for which
he had no idea there was room in his mechanism.

He had come down to breakfast in his dull little parlour, confidently
expecting to see Gertrude's handwriting on his table, and it was not
there.

He sat down mechanically and looked round the dull little room, and
the dulness of it, the dinginess, the unhomelikeness of it struck on
his heart as it had never done before.

The small horsehair sofa where he sometimes tried to find a
resting-place and failed; the tiny chiffonnier, unenlightened by
a looking-glass or any ornament save a vase, which had been one of
Gertrude's childish birthday presents to him, and which he always
kept filled with flowers and called them Gertrude's flowers; the
uncomfortable horsehair arm-chair and the bare breakfast table with
its coarse cloth and clumsy china, had all been bearable while
he looked forward to a dainty and pretty, though tiny, home with
Gertrude.

The half loaf of bread and the pat of butter which always tasted of
the chiffonnier-cupboard, but had to be kept there because when a
piece went out to the larder, none ever returned, filled him with
loathing this morning.

Why was there no letter from Gertrude? His landlady bustled in with
his tea and a rasher of bacon and a slice of toast, the last item, as
she remarked, being for a birthday treat, and he rouse