en questioned to no purpose. Everybody
talked about the dog-fight, nobody had even seen a child, though a
porter averred that he had seen the empty chair long before the dogs
came on the scene, and a workman that there had been no chair there at
all when the up-train came in. He had stood on the very spot where the
chair was supposed to be, watching through the window for a friend,
with his bag of tools on the ground beside him. He had moved forward
to speak to his friend, and returning a few moments later when the
train had gone, to take up the tools, had then noticed the empty
chair.

What had become of the child was a complete mystery! Every house of
the Broughams' acquaintance was visited, in the forlorn hope that
someone had taken Maud home with them, but the answer was always the
same. Telegrams were sent to all the stations on the line, both up and
down, but the hour between five and six held the busiest trains of the
day, and in the rush of passengers, augmented by gangs of working men
returning to their homes, there was small chance of a ticket collector
having leisure to observe the children who passed through his gate.

No one at home said a word of blame to Gertrude. There was no need.
They had heard the whole story and they only pitied her, and her
grief was far greater than their own, they thought, for there was no
self-blame, no shadow of deception, no regret of wilfulness in their
sorrow. Even Conway felt unutterably tender towards this least dear
of his sisters, when he came in from a fruitless errand, and found the
proud, dark head resting on little Maud's high chair, while Gertrude's
whole frame shook with sobs.

"Don't cry so!" he said gently, and he found it hard to keep his own
voice steady. "Don't cry so, poor old girl. God knows where she is and
He'll take care of her. I keep on saying that to myself, for I know He
will."

"If only I had told them all about Cecil, it would not have been so
bad," sobbed Gertrude.

And Conway could not answer. He only patted her shoulder kindly and
went upstairs to find his mother.

The days dragged along their weary hours after that and no news came
of Maud.

The Broughams felt as if an earthquake had come into their lives,
leaving them all uprooted; as if nothing could let them settle down to
the old routine of life till Maud came back, and without even putting
it into words to each other, they all looked drearily forward into
days and weeks and months