re
for me? What can they see in me? Why are they so good to me? I was never
good to them." She did not guess that, at her very first visit to Lane
End House, the force and mystery of her character had powerfully
attracted these rather experienced amateurs of human nature. She was
unaware that she had made her mark upon Janet and Charlie so far back as
the days of the dancing-classes. And she under-estimated the appeal of
her situation as an orphan and a solitary whose mother's death, in its
swiftness, had amounted to a tragedy.

The scherzo was finished, and Alicia had not returned into the
drawing-room. The two pianists sat hesitant.

"Where is that infant?" Tom demanded. "If I finish it all without her
she'll be vexed."

"I can tell you where she ought to be," said Mrs. Orgreave placidly.
"She ought to be in bed. No wonder she looks pale, stopping up till this
time of night!"

Then there were unusual and startling movements behind the door,
accompanied by giggling. And Alicia entered, followed by
Charlie--Charlie who was supposed at that precise instant to be in
London!

"Hello, mater!" said the curly-headed Charlie, with a sublime
affectation of calmness, as though he had slipped out of the next room.
He produced an effect fully equal to his desires.

III

In a little while, Charlie, on the sofa, was seated at a small table
covered with viands and fruit; the white cloth spread on the table made
a curiously charming patch amid the sombre colours of the drawing-room.
He had protested that, having consumed much food en route, he was not
hungry; but in vain. Mrs. Orgreave demolished such arguments by the
power of her notorious theory, which admitted no exceptions, that any
person coming off an express train must be in need of sustenance. The
odd thing was that all the others discovered mysterious appetites and
began to eat and drink with gusto, sitting, standing, or walking about,
while Charlie, munching, related how he had miraculously got three days'
leave from the hospital, and how he had impulsively 'cabbed it' to
Euston, and how, having arrived at Knype, he had also 'cabbed it' from
Knype to Bleakridge instead of waiting for the Loop Line train. The blot
on his advent, in the eyes of Mrs. Orgreave, was that he had no fresh
news of Marian and her children.

"You don't seem very surprised to find Hilda here," said Alicia.

"It's not my business to be surprised at anything, kid," Charlie
retorted, smilin