"Elizabeth, do you know what has happened?"
"No."
"Then I don't want you to know. And you must never try to find it out; for it is a secret that ought to be kept strictly within the family. Are you to be trusted?"
"Yes, Miss Hilary."
"Now, get me my bonnet, and let us make haste and go home."
They walked down the gas-lit Kensington High Street, Hilary taking her servant's arm; for she felt strangely weak. As she sat in the dark corner of the omnibus she tried to look things in the face, and form some definite plan; but the noisy rumble at once dulled and confused her faculties. She felt capable of no consecutive thought, but found herself stupidly watching the two lines of faces, wondering, absently, what sort of people they were; what were their lives and histories; and whether they all had, like herself, their own personal burden of woe. Which was, alas! the one fact that never need be doubted in this world.
It was nigh upon eleven o'clock when Hilary knocked at the door of
No. 15.
Miss Leaf opened it; but for the first time in her life she had no welcome for her child.
"Is it Ascott? I thought it was Ascott," she cried, peering eagerly up and down the street.
"He is gone out, then? When did he go?" asked Hilary, feeling her heart turn stone-cold.