o do?"

"I can't think why she wrote and told them not to meet her on Wednesday,"
said the old lady. "So timid as Emmeline always was, and she hated
travelling alone! Oh, Judith! Has she run away with some one?"

A cold hand seemed to clutch Judith's heart, and her face was like marble.
Bertie! Oh no--no--no! Not her brother! This treachery could not be his
work. Yet "Bertie" flashed before her eyes as if the name were written in
letters of flame on Mr. Nash's open note, on the wall, the floor, the
ceiling. It swam in a fiery haze between Miss Crawford and herself.

She stood with her hands tightly clasped and her lips compressed. It
seemed to her that if she relaxed the tension of her muscles for one
moment Bertie's name would force its way out in spite of her. And even in
that first dismay she was conscious that she had no ground for her belief
but an unreasoning instinct and the mere fact that Bertie was away.

"Help me, Judith!" said Miss Crawford pitifully. She trembled as she
clung to the girl's shoulder. "I'm not so young as I used to be, you know.
I don't feel as if I could stand it. Oh, if only your mamma were here!"

Judith answered with a sob. Miss Crawford's confession of old age went to
her heart. So did that pathetic cry, which was half longing for her who
had been so many years at rest, and half for Miss Crawford's own stronger
and brighter self of bygone days. She put her arm round the schoolmistress
and held up the shaking, unsubstantial little figure. "If Bertie has done
this, he has killed her," said the girl to herself, even while she
declared aloud, "I _will_ help you, dear Miss Crawford. I will do all I
can. Don't be so unhappy: it may be better than we fear." But the last
words, instead of ringing clear and true, as consolation should, died
faintly on her lips.

Something was done, however. Miss Crawford was put on the sofa and had a
glass of wine, while Judith sent a telegram in her name to Mr. Nash. But
the poor old lady could not rest for a moment. She pulled herself up by
the help of the back of the couch, and sitting there, with her ghastly
face surmounted by a crushed and woebegone cap, she went over the same old
questions and doubts and fears again and again. Judith answered her as
well as she could, and persuaded her to lie down once more. But in another
moment she was up again: "Judith, I want you! Come here--come quite
close!"

"Here I am, dear Miss Crawford. What is it?"

The ol