"I'll go round the garden way and disturb her," said Reggie, with a laugh.
He thought as he went round the garden that "Gertrude busy in the kitchen all the afternoon," had an odd sound.
Gertrude had not begun to study. She sat in a deep armchair, her books unopened on her lap, looking out upon the sunny garden, and brooding drearily over the past, wondering sadly whether, if Maud were never, never found, she could ever feel happy again! And if happiness did come to her, and Maud had not come back, how terrible that would be, for it would mean that she had forgotten Maud, forgotten her wrong-doing; that she had become again the self-loving, self-centred being that had lost Maud!
As Reggie's figure crossed the grass she sprang up, and her books fell with a clatter to the ground.
"Oh, Reggie!" she said, just as her mother had done.
"Yes," said Reggie, "I've come! I only heard yesterday."
A flood of colour swept over Gertrude's face, but the room was shaded, and she hoped Reggie would not see. What must he think of the story he had only heard yesterday! She had wished that he might know about it. Now she felt as if he were the only one in the world, from whom she would gladly have hidden it.
"Sit down," she said; "all the others are out, except mother."
"I've seen her," he said quietly.
There was a pause. There seemed nothing to say, absolutely nothing! Nothing that could be said, at least.