her. Her eyes smarted and a great
sob came into her throat. She had no home. Nobody wanted her!

CHAPTER III

PASSIONATE PITY

A tear fell upon the envelope in her hand, and one fell upon the red
carpet under her feet. She must try and not cry, crying made one ugly.
She must go to her room as quickly as she could.

Then came noiselessly out from the curtained door at Gwen's right hand
the figure of Dr. Middleton. He was already dressed for dinner, his face
composed and dignified as usual, but preoccupied as if the business of
the day was not over. There were these letters waiting for him on the
table. He came on, and Gwen, blinded by a big tear in each eye, vaguely
knew that he stooped and swept up the letters in his hand. Then he
turned his face towards her in his slow, deliberate way and looked. She
closed her eyes, and the two tears squeezed between the lids, ran down
her cheeks leaving the delicate rosy skin wet and shining under the
electric light.

Tears had rarely been seen by the Warden: never--in fact--until lately!
He was startled by them and disconcerted.

"Has anything happened?" he asked. "Anything serious?" It would need to
be something very serious for tears!

The gentleness of his voice only made the desolation in Gwen's heart the
more poignant. In a week's time she would have to leave this beautiful
kindly little home, this house of refuge. The fear she had had before of
the Warden vanished at his sudden tenderness of tone; he seemed now
something to cling to, something solid and protective that belonged to
the world of ease and comfort, of good things; things to be desired
above all else, and from which she was going to be cruelly banished--to
Stow. She made a convulsive noise somewhere in her young throat, but was
inarticulate.

There came sounds of approaching steps. The Warden hesitated but only
for a moment. He moved to the door of the library.

"Come in here," he said, a little peremptorily, and he turned and opened
it for Gwen.

Gwen slid within and moving blindly, knocked herself against the
protruding wing of his book-shelves. That made the Warden vexed with
somebody, the somebody who had made the child cry so much that she
couldn't see where she was going. He closed the door behind her.

"You have bad news in that letter?" he asked. "Your mother is not ill?"

Gwen shook her head and stared upon the floor, her lips twitching.

"Anything you can talk over with Lady Dashwo