"Mr. Bancroft is in the parlor, ma'am, and will meet you there. Will you be kind enough to come immediately as his business is pressing?"
Lillian arose quickly and followed the servant.
"I beg your pardon for troubling you, but I am anxious to find a Mrs. Hudson Gaylord. Are you the Mr. Bancroft with whom she is acquainted?"
"O, yes, if you are her friend I rejoice to meet you;" and he extended his hand.
"I am not acquainted with her, but would like to learn if she has a young lady whom she claims as an adopted daughter?"
"Lily? Certainly! But they are not in the city." She started and he hurried to say: "She is only an hour's ride away. You can get to her before ten in the morning. There is a little hotel out in Kirkham where she has a fancy to spend her summers rather than at a fashionable watering place, and I believe it was in that vicinity where she found her two protegees. If I can assist you in any way I shall be happy to do so." He arose to depart. Lillian extended her hand; with many thanks and exchanging good-nights they separated, the merchant to forget perhaps the trifling incident in the press of business, the other to her lonely room and rest.
"Yes—I am glad," she thought as she closed and bolted the door; "she—my child—is not here and her mother has an hour's ride to get to her!" Peacefully she rested on the threshold of a new experience. Her heart throbbed wildly with hope and fear as it peered through at the coming possibilities, with new loves clamoring to be fed and old ones struggling for precedence, and yet she slept! The morning came and looked in through the narrow aperture of the closed shutters, but she did not wake. The gong sent its warning echoes up through the broad halls but she slept on. Eight o'clock and a loud knocking upon the door awoke her, and bounding from her bed she answered the summons.
"A gentleman in the parlor, ma'am, and wishes to see Mrs. Hamilton."
"In just one moment!" and she hurriedly made herself ready to meet her visitor.
"The train would leave for Kirkham in a half hour, and Mr. Bancroft would be happy to see her safely upon it." This was the word he sent her.