he pushed open the green gate
and walked up to the open door. It seemed to her as though she were
someone else, as she crossed the threshold and stood for a moment in the
little hall. Biddy came out of the kitchen. The mistress was in the
drawing-room, she said, and Miss Mollie was out; and Audrey, still with
that strange weight at her heart, went upstairs slowly. Mrs. Blake was
sitting in her usual seat by the window. She rose without speaking and
took Audrey's hands, but there was no smile upon her face. She looked
very pale, and Audrey could see at once that she had been weeping.

'You have come,' she said quietly; 'I thought my letter would bring you.
Perhaps it was wrong of me to write; I ought to have come to you
instead. But how was I to speak to you alone? Last night I was almost
desperate, and then I was obliged to send for you.'

'If you wanted me so much, of course you were right to send for me.'

Audrey was conscious that her manner was cold, and that her voice was
hardly as sympathetic as usual. She was sure Mrs. Blake noticed it, for
her eyes filled with tears.

'Oh, how coldly you speak! My poor boy has indeed offended you deeply.
Oh, I know everything; he was too unhappy last night to hide it any
longer from his mother. Do you know what he said to me?--that with all
his strength he could not bear it, and that he must go away.'

'Go away--leave Rutherford?'

'Yes;' and now the tears were streaming down her face, and her voice was
almost choked with sobs. 'He said he must give it up, and that we must
all go away--that the effort is killing him, and that no man could bear
such an ordeal. Oh, Miss Ross'--as Audrey averted her face--'I know you
are sorry for him; but think what it was for his mother to stand by and
hear him say such things. My boy--my brave, noble-hearted boy, who has
never given me an hour's pain in his life!'

'And you have sent for me to tell me this?'

There was something proud, almost resentful, in Audrey's tone.

'Yes; but you must not be angry with me. I think that, if Cyril knew
that I was betraying him, he would never give me his confidence again.
Last night I heard him walking about his room, and I went up to him. He
wanted to send me away, but I would not go. I knelt down beside him and
put my arms round his neck, and told him that I had found out his
secret. It had come to me with a sudden flash as I sat beside him in
chapel last Sunday. You passed up the aisle, and I saw