" Mrs. Deland asked eagerly.

A crowd had gathered about the two, and stood listening.

"He told me not to tell," said Gwen, shutting her lips firmly
together.

"What? You know where he is, and will not tell me, his own mother?
Why, child, I am sick with worrying. Tell me, this moment!"

Gwen made no reply.

She loved Max, but she had never liked his mother, and that she should
command her to tell made the little girl more stubborn than she had
ever been before.

"I wouldn't tell now even if Mrs. Deland and all those other women
stuck pins into me," thought Gwen.

It was in vain that they questioned her. Pleading, threatening,
coaxing were equally unavailing, and when Mrs. Harcourt, seeing the
group, came out upon the piazza, Gwen flew to her, saying that
everyone was teasing her.

"It is an outrage!" cried Mrs. Harcourt, her voice shrill with anger.

"I wonder what you can be thinking of? A half dozen grown people
tormenting one small girl."

"My dear Mrs. Harcourt, you don't at all understand," said a tall,
haughty-looking woman. "Your little daughter knows where the lost boy,
Max Deland, is, and, although his mother is nearly wild with anxiety,
she will not tell, that we may know where to find him."

Mrs. Harcourt hesitated. Then she looked at Gwen's flushed cheeks and
downcast eyes.

"Do you know where Max is?" she asked.

"No, I _don't_!" snapped Gwen.

Mrs. Harcourt turned and faced them. She extended her hands.

"There!" she cried. "You see, do you not, that it was idle to tease
Gwen? She does not know where he is."

"She certainly said that she knew where he went," said a stout lady.
"I do know where he _went_!" shouted Gwen, "but how do I know where he
is _now_?"

"Where did he go?" questioned Mrs. Harcourt.

"I promised him I wouldn't tell," said Gwen, "and I won't!"

She wriggled from her mother's grasp, and racing across the piazza,
fled up the stairway to her room.

"Gwen is too honorable to break a promise," sighed Mrs. Harcourt, as
she left the group of disgusted ladies, to follow her small girl to
her apartment.

"Too stubborn would be nearer the truth," muttered the stout lady.

"That child should be made to tell," said another.

"She shall be made to tell," Mrs. Deland said as she turned toward the
small room that served as an office.

Gwen, as stubborn as a little mule, refused to tell the proprietor of
the house, when he called her into his office, and after talking fo