deed, but in the ethical laboratory it
shows a different nature. And when the disaster came, Mrs. Milton's
remorse for their gradual loss of sympathy and her share in the losing
of it, was genuine enough.

You may imagine the comfort she got from her friends, and how West
Kensington and Notting Hill and Hampstead, the literary suburbs, those
decent penitentiaries of a once Bohemian calling, hummed with the
business, Her 'Men'--as a charming literary lady she had, of course, an
organised corps--were immensely excited, and were sympathetic;
helpfully energetic, suggestive, alert, as their ideals of their various
dispositions required them to be. "Any news of Jessie?" was the pathetic
opening of a dozen melancholy but interesting conversations. To her Men
she was not perhaps so damp as she was to her women friends, but in a
quiet way she was even more touching. For three days, Wednesday that is,
Thursday, and Friday, nothing was heard of the fugitives. It was known
that Jessie, wearing a patent costume with buttonup skirts, and mounted
on a diamond frame safety with Dunlops, and a loofah covered saddle,
had ridden forth early in the morning, taking with her about two pounds
seven shillings in money, and a grey touring case packed, and there,
save for a brief note to her stepmother,--a declaration of independence,
it was said, an assertion of her Ego containing extensive and very
annoying quotations from "A Soul Untrammelled," and giving no definite
intimation of her plans--knowledge ceased. That note was shown to few,
and then only in the strictest confidence.

But on Friday evening late came a breathless Man Friend, Widgery, a
correspondent of hers, who had heard of her trouble among the first. He
had been touring in Sussex,--his knapsack was still on his back,--and
he testified hurriedly that at a place called Midhurst, in the bar of an
hotel called the Angel, he had heard from a barmaid a vivid account of
a Young Lady in Grey. Descriptions tallied. But who was the man in
brown? "The poor, misguided girl! I must go to her at once," she said,
choking, and rising with her hand to her heart.

"It's impossible to-night. There are no more trains. I looked on my
way."

"A mother's love," she said. "I bear her THAT."

"I know you do." He spoke with feeling, for no one admired his
photographs of scenery more than Mrs. Milton. "It's more than she
deserves."

"Oh, don't speak unkindly of her! She has been misled."

It was