her impatiently, 'you must not keep me
waiting any longer, Geraldine. Sit down by the fire and warm yourself,
my dear.'

And for one moment Dr. Ross's hand lay lightly on Audrey's brown hair.
Did he guess the real meaning of the girl's downcast and sorrowful
looks? And why was there a pleased smile on his face as he followed his
eldest daughter out of the room?

'I shall write to Michael and tell him to come home,' he said to
himself, as he buttoned up his great-coat. 'I promised him that I would
watch over his interests, and I shall tell him that in my opinion there
is some hope for him now.'

The next few days were terrible to Audrey. More than once she feared she
would be ill. She could not sleep properly. The mornings, the
afternoons, the evenings, were endless to her. Mollie's merry chatter
seemed to jar on her. Her mother's kindly commonplace remarks seemed
devoid of interest, and yet above all things she dreaded to be alone.
Was she growing nervous? for any sudden sound, an unaccustomed footstep,
even the clanging of the door-bell, made her start, and drove the blood
from her heart. Would he write or would he telegraph? Should she hear
one day that he was on his way home? Audrey was asking herself these
questions morning, noon, and night. She felt as though the suspense
would wear her out in time. If anyone had told Audrey that for the
first time in her life she had all the symptoms that belong to a
certain well-known disease--that these cold and hot fits, this
self-distrustfulness and new timidity that were transforming her into a
different Audrey, were only its salient features--she would have scouted
the idea very fiercely. That she was in love with Michael, and that her
love for Cyril was a very dim, shadowy sort of affection compared with
her love for Michael,--such a thought would have utterly shocked her;
and yet it was the truth. Michael had always been more to her than ever
she had guessed, and this long absence had taught her the unmistakable
fact that she could not do without him.

Audrey struggled on as well as she could through those restless,
miserable days. She would not give in; she had never given in in her
life to any passing tide of emotion, and she would not be weak now.
Every morning, after a wakeful, unrefreshing night, she braced herself
to meet the day's duties. She read French and German with Mollie; she
superintended her practising, and only wandered off in a dream when
Mollie's sca