the children's questions about Harry, when they assembled in the keeping
room the morning of his departure. Mary, too, felt anxious about her
brother; but she dared not question her aunt as the children did; and
from her answers to them little could be gathered beyond this, that
Harry had disgraced himself through making unworthy friendships, and the
children at once jumped to the conclusion that it was Gilbert Clayton to
whom their aunt referred. Mary, however, indignantly repelled this
insinuation. She had had several conversations with Clayton, and had
learned to esteem him very highly, so that how Harry could have
disgraced himself while with him, or what the wild words he had uttered
the previous evening fully meant, she could not tell.

At dinner time Maud came down looking very pale but quite calm, until
Master Drury, noticing that Harry's chair had been placed at the table
as usual, ordered it to be carried away without mentioning his name, and
said, "That seat will not be wanted again." Then Maud trembled with
agitation, and Bertram asked quickly, "Where has brother Harry gone?"

"My boy, you have no brother," said Master Drury, coldly.

"Oh, Harry's dead!" screamed Bessie, pushing aside her pewter plate, and
laying her head on the table in a burst of uncontrollable anguish.

Maud, however, knew that he was not dead, but without noticing Bessie's
distress or Mary's look of mute agony, she rose from her seat, and
walking round to the side of Master Drury, she said, "You will tell me
where Harry has gone."

It was a demand rather than a question, and Mistress Mabel, as well as
her brother, opened her eyes wide with astonishment on hearing it. "He
has disgraced himself and all who bear his name," said the lady,
quickly.

"Prithee, Maud, go and sit down," said Master Drury, tenderly.

But Maud shook her head. "You will tell me where Harry is, first," she
said, still in the same quiet tone of command.

"I know not, unless he be travelling towards London with his false
friend, who has turned his head with his stories of the traitor
Parliament. He hath done this much; he confessed it to me this morning
ere they departed," added Master Drury.

He thought this would satisfy Maud, and all questioning would be at an
end now, but the young lady asked, "What did you mean, Master Drury, by
saying Bertram had no brother now?"

Mistress Mabel looked horrified at the impertinence of the question, but
Maud stood still