't to be wondered at either. A
high-spirited girl finds it hard to be bound down to rule and regulation.
But the porter--he is an intelligent man--he would tell you where she had
gone to."

"I asked him; he didn't know. All he could say was that she left the
hospital on the morning of Lord Mayor's Show-day."

"That would be the 9th of November--the day we took our vows."

There was another pause; the big dark eyes were wandering vacantly.

"After all, he is only a porter; you asked for the matron, didn't you?"

"Yes; I thought she might know what had become of my sister. But she
didn't. As for Nurse Quayle, she had been dismissed also, and nobody knew
anything about her."

John had seated himself at Paul's side and the form itself was quivering.

"Now that's just like her," he said hoarsely. "That matron was always a
hard woman. And to think that in that great house of love and pity
nobody----"

"I'm forgetting something, brother."

"What is it?"

"The porter told me that the nurse called for her letters from time to
time. She had been there that night--not half an hour before."

"Then you followed her, didn't you? You asked which, way she had gone,
and you hurried after her?"

"Yes; but half an hour in London is a week anywhere else. Let anybody
cross the street and she is lost--more lost to sight than a ship in a
storm on the ocean. And then it was New Year's Eve, and the thoroughfares
were crowded, and thousands of women were coming and going--and--what
could I do?" he said helplessly.

John answered scornfully: "What could you do? Do you ask me what you
could do?"

"What would you have done?"

"I should have tramped every street in London and looked into the face of
every woman I met until I had found her. I should have worn my shoes to
the welt and my skin to the bone before I should have come crawling home
like a snail with my shell broken over my head!

"Don't be hard on me, brother, least of all now, when I have come home
like a snail, as you say, with my shell broken. I was very tired and ill
and did all I could. If I had been strong like you and brave-hearted I
might have struggled longer. Bid I _did_ tramp the streets and look into
the women's faces. She must have been among them, if she's living the
life you speak of; but God would not let me find her. Why was it that my
search was fruitless? Perhaps there was evil in my heart at first--I
don't mind telling you that now--but I swear to yo