After all, what did it matter? Perhaps it was best to know the worst that was being said. No one could blame her more than she blamed herself; she had lost little Maud through meeting Cecil Greyburne and she had done it secretly. Only she hoped that all these other false stories would not reach her home people's ears.
And not one friend of hers had offered her any sympathy. She felt it keenly. Even Pauline only troubled to see her when she had some fresh tale to relate. Cecil had written his sympathy to Denys and had ignored Gertrude, not even sending her a message, for Gertrude had seen the letter.
The rich American had not referred to it when he answered Pauline's letter in which she told him all about Maud, unless his remark that he should not be back in Old Keston after all, could be taken as a reference. Nor had he written a line of condolence to Gertrude, as she had half hoped he would.
And Reggie did not know anything about it. He had sent an immediate and cheerful response to her belated birthday letter, but not having written to him for so long in her sunny days of popularity, she was too proud to do so now, when she was in sorrow.
Yet she watched for a letter from him, hoping that Charlie would write to him and tell him of their trouble, and if he once heard of it, Gertrude knew that a letter would come by return of post.
But none came. Charlie did not write to Reggie. How could he do so without attaching blame to Gertrude?
These were days of darkness, but in them Pattie shone out like gold. She waited on them all with love and patience, she kept the meals regular and the rooms nicely dusted, and she attended to all the little duties that no one seemed to think of now-a-days.
It was she who received Maud's empty chair from the station-clerk, and hid it away that it might bring no fresh pang of sorrow to any heart. It was she who unostentatiously and without fuss, quietly laid by the child's toys and clothes, for she truly guessed that to Denys or Mrs. Brougham, to do so would be like saying a long farewell to their darling, and yet to see them lying here and there, was a constant reminder of her loss.
Though the two things seemed to have no connection with one another, after the day that Maud was lost, Pattie gave up going out with Sam Willard.
She said, when he remonstrated with her, that she had no heart now for palavering and he had better find someone who was free and happy. For herself, she could think of nothing but how to find little Maud again.