ll me what has
happened--quickly, for I--I don't understand!"

Mrs. Raleigh took the letter, passing a supporting arm around the girl's
quivering form.

"Sit down, dear!" she said tenderly.

Audrey obeyed, but her face was still raised in voiceless supplication
as Mrs. Raleigh opened the letter. The pause that followed was terrible
to her. She endured it in wrung silence, her hands fast gripped
together.

Then Mrs. Raleigh turned, and in her eyes was a deep compassion, a
motherly tenderness of pity, that was to Audrey the confirmation of her
worst fears.

She did not speak again. Her heart felt constricted, paralysed. But Mrs.
Raleigh saw the entreaty which her whole body expressed, and, stooping,
she took the rigid hands into hers.

My dear," she said, "he has gone into the Hills in disguise, up to the
native fort beyond Wara, as that is where he expects to find Phil.
Heaven help him and bring them both back!"

Audrey stared at her with a stunned expression. Her lips were quite
white, and Mrs. Raleigh thought she was going to faint.

But Audrey did not lose consciousness. She sat there as if turned to
stone, trying to speak and failing to make any sound. At last,
convulsively, words came.

"They will take him for a spy," she said, both hands pressed to her
throat as if something there hurt her intolerably. "The
Waris--torture--spies!"

"My darling, my darling, we must hope--hope and pray!" said the
Irishwoman, holding her closely.

Audrey turned suddenly, passionately, in the enfolding arms and clung to
her as if in physical agony.

"You may, you may," she said in a dreadful whisper, "but I can't--for I
don't believe. Do you in your heart believe he will ever come back?"

Mrs. Raleigh did not answer.

Audrey went on, still holding her tightly:

"Do you think I don't know why he wrote to you? It was to put me in your
care, because--because he knew he was never coming back. And shall
I--shall I tell you why he went?"

"Darling, hush--hush!" pleaded Mrs. Raleigh, her voice unsteady with
emotion. "There, don't say any more! Put your head on my shoulder, love.
Let me hold you so."

But Audrey's convulsive hold did not relax. She had been a child all her
life up to that moment, but, like a worn-out garment, her childhood had
slipped from her, and she had emerged a woman. The old, happy ignorance
was gone for ever, and the revelation that had dispelled it was almost
more than she could bear. Her newly