"But she had no address to give us," Mrs. Beaton answered, with a troubled look on her kind face. "She said she would go to stay with some friends at Brighton for a month; the sea-air would be good for the boy and herself. They had both fretted themselves quite ill. After leaving Brighton she was thinking of settling at Lee, in Kent. Naturally, I approved of the Brighton plan, as I knew that Jamie needed a change."
Elsie was thoughtful for a moment; then she looked up, with a sudden hope shining in her eyes. "Perhaps we are worrying ourselves without a cause," she said. "It may be that they have not left Brighton, and the child is well and happy there."
"Who can tell?" The words came from Andrew as he rose from his chair and went to a side-table. "I am going to write to Mrs. Penn through the papers." His mother and Elsie watched him as he opened a blotting-book and set about his task at once. There was something firm and business-like in his way of doing things. In a few minutes the notice was written, and he read it aloud to them:—"Mrs. Penn, formerly of — Soho Square, is requested to communicate at once with Andrew Beaton, — Wardour Street, W."
"That will do," said Mrs. Beaton approvingly.
Elsie, too, rose from her seat. The afternoon was wearing away, and Miss Saxon would be getting uneasy at her absence.
"You will come again, my dear?" said the old lady, holding her hand in a lingering clasp.
"I shall be very glad to come," Elsie answered. "It is so long since I have talked with any one so motherly as you are." As she spoke her lips quivered. They both knew that the loss of a mother leaves a void which can only be filled up in heaven, and perhaps the first treasure restored to us there will be the unspeakable gift of a mother's love.
"I have never had a daughter," said Mrs. Beaton, with a slight trembling in her voice. "When Meta Neale came I sometimes caught a glimpse of what a daughter might be."
The room was growing darker, but Elsie felt rather than saw the swift look of pain which swept across Andrew's face. She felt in her mind, magnetically, the feeling that was in his. It came to her all at once—that sudden, strange intuition which reveals to us the deep places in other people's lives.
He, too, had caught a glimpse of what a daughter might have been to his mother. He had seen how lovely his life might have grown if he could have won Meta. But that vision had been sternly put away from him; neither in this life nor the next would she belong to him.