e. A pretty child smiled at her over a cottage
gate, its golden curls tossed by the breeze.

Again she thought of Jamie, picturing the rosy face and golden curls,
like those which Meta had described. If she could find the boy, she
felt, with a sudden heart-throb, that she must hold him fast. No woman's
life is complete without a child's presence in it. There are a hundred
ways of filling up the void, but only one natural way. Elsie Kilner was
nearly nine-and-twenty, and she was hungering, half unconsciously, after
a child's love.

She caught a delicious glimpse of woods, just touched with that first
shade of green which no artist has ever truthfully rendered. Men can
paint summer and autumn, but the promise of the seasons escapes them; it
is too subtle for brush or pencil. You may as well try to paint a
perfume or a sigh.

And yet, as Elsie thought, walking onward, there is something in these
beginnings which is sadder even than the summer's ending. Birth is the
herald of decay and death, but decay and death are the sure forerunners
of new life.

The afternoon was deepening into evening when she found herself again in
All Saints' Street, and Miss Saxon's pleasant face greeted her at the
door.

"Any news, Miss Kilner?" was the first question.

"No news of Jamie," Elsie answered sadly. "But I must try to find Mrs.
Penn's house in Soho Square."

"Does she live there now?" Miss Saxon asked.

"Mrs. Tryon thinks not. She couldn't remember the number."

"That does not matter," said Miss Saxon cheerfully. "The square is not
very large; it will only take a little while to go from door to door."

The last light of the day was shining into Elsie's sitting-room when she
went upstairs, and it was a light which seemed to flow in like a golden
wave from some unseen ocean of peace.

Had she come into this quiet house to be guided, by a vanished hand,
along a path which she knew not? All she was sure of was the influence
which had turned her feet out of the old road, so thickly set with
thorns. Surely it was a kindly power which had led her away from the
contemplation of her own grief and wrongs, and had given her a quest!

Something to do, something to seek and to hope for--this is the greatest
blessing which can be conferred on a lonely life.

Elsie lighted her lamp, and wrote a long, cheery letter to the rector's
wife in the Sussex village; but not one word did she say about the
search for Jamie.

CHAPTER V