or her being better. I suppose she has
not heard--?' And here he stopped rather awkwardly.

'Do you mean whether she has heard anything of Eric? Oh no, Max.'

'No, I was not meaning that,' looking at me rather astonished. 'Of course
we know the poor boy is dead. I was only wondering if she had had an
Indian letter lately. Well, it is none of my affair, and I cannot wait to
hear more now. Good-night, little she-bear; I am off.' And he actually
was off, in spite of my calling him quite loudly in the porch, for I
wanted him to tell me what he meant. Had Gladys any special correspondent
in India? I wondered if I might venture to question Lady Betty.

As it very often happens, she played quite innocently into my hands, for
the very next day she came to tell me that she had had a letter from
Gladys.

'It was a very short one,' she grumbled. 'Only she had an Indian letter
to answer, and that took up her time, so that was a pretty good excuse
for once.'

'Has Gladys any special friend in India?'

'Only Claude!--I mean our cousin, Claude Hamilton. Have you not often
heard us talk of him? How strange! Why, he used to stay with us for
months at a time, and he and Gladys were great friends: they correspond.
He is Captain Hamilton now; his regiment was ordered to India just at the
time poor dear Eric disappeared; he was awfully shocked about that, I
remember. Etta wrote and told him all about it; he was a great favourite
of hers. We none of us thought him handsome except Etta; he was a
nice-looking fellow, but nothing else.'

'And you and Gladys are fond of him?'

'Oh yes.' But here Lady Betty looked a little queer.

'Gladys writes to him most: she has always been his correspondent.
Now and then I get a letter written to me. You see, he has no one else
belonging to him, now his mother is dead. Aunt Agnes died about two years
ago, and he never had brothers or sisters, so he adopted us.'

'Uncle Max knew him, of course?'

'To be sure. Mr. Cunliffe knew all our people. Claude was a favourite of
his, too. I think every one liked him; he was so straightforward, and
never did anything mean. I think he will make a splendid officer; he has
had fever lately, and we rather expect he is coming home on sick-leave.
Etta hopes so.'

'Gladys has never spoken of her cousin to me.'

'That is because you two are always talking about other things,--poor
Eric, for example. Gladys likes to talk about Claude, of course: he is
her own cous