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The stranger stared at Ruth Carson in her turn.

“Why, what on earth do you mean? Certainly I am not Mary Marston! This is her home, isn’t it? That is her mother? Why should she faint if she did think I was Mary?”

Ruth Carson answered the question by asking another.

“If you are not Mary, who are you?”

“A friend of hers—Charlotte Gidden by name,” was the brisk reply. “Pray, do you Lockford folk think that there is only one nurse in the world and that her name is Mary Marston? We were at Guy’s together, Mary and I; and as I am spending my holidays at Plymouth I thought I would come over and look her up. But let me see what I can do here.”

She helped Ruth to assist the half-unconscious Mrs. Marston up the path and deposited her in the arm-chair. Then she took command of the situation and dispatched Ruth for simple remedies; after these had been applied for a few minutes Mrs. Marston opened her eyes.

“Mary!” she said feebly. “Mary!”

The nurse drew a little out of sight, and Ruth answered: “No, it was not Mary, Mrs. Marston, but it was a friend of hers.”

“A friend of Mary’s,” the weak voice replied. “Who is it? I should like to see her. Has she brought any news?”

“She will do now,” Nurse Gidden said as she stepped forward. “Yes, I am Mary’s friend, Charlotte Gidden; I am sure you have heard her speak of me, haven’t you, Mrs. Marston? Now I think the best thing for you would be a cup of tea; I can hear the kettle singing away on the fire, and I wonder if you would be good enough to give me a cup with you? It is a hot walk from the station.”

“Ay, for sure!” Mrs. Marston said feebly. “You are kindly welcome to everything I have, for Mary’s sake. Many’s the time I have heard her speak of you. You know as she’s lost, maybe?”

Charlotte Gidden looked bewildered.

“Lost! Mary lost! I don’t know what you are talking about, Mrs. Marston.”

“It is lost she is though, poor girl!” Mrs. Marston went on. “The trouble of it is like to kill me. Nursing that poor young lady up at the Manor she was, and just walked out of the room and never been heard of since.”

“Never been heard of since!” Nurse Gidden turned to Ruth Carson, who, nothing loath, supplied the details in the intervals of laying the cloth and pouring out the tea.

Charlotte Gidden, eating a slice of the thin bread and butter that Ruth had cut and sipping her tea, thought that she had never listened to a more extraordinary story.

“Why on earth should she go away like that?” she debated. “I had a letter from her after she went to the Manor, and I am sure she was not thinking of leaving then, though she seemed put about over the young lady. She had seen her somewhere before, she said, and she thought it was her duty to tell Lady Laura Hargreave so at once, though she doubted how it would be taken, as she hadn’t much proof of what she said, and they were all so taken up with the young lady.”

Mrs. Marston and Ruth were both gazing at her in amazement. The former was the first to speak:

“You don’t mean you heard from her after she went to the Manor?”

“Yes—the very night she got there,” Charlotte affirmed, helping herself to another slice of bread and butter. “She had just seen her patient when she wrote. What did they say when they found she had recognized her, Mrs. Marston? Were they surprised?”

“Don’t you see, they never did know!” Ruth Carson burst out. “Mary had left the young lady with Miss Mavis while she told her ladyship, and she never saw my lady or nobody else. That letter of yours must have been wrote while she was waiting, and it was the last as she ever did write, poor thing—leastways, as we have been able to hear of.”

“But—but it couldn’t have been that night she went away,” said Nurse Gidden. “She had no such notion in her head, I am sure, when she wrote to me.”

“She had no notion of going away the day before she went up to the Manor, I am sure,” Mrs. Marston said tearfully. “We were sitting having our bit of dinner together as cheerful as possible and Mary, she was saying how glad she was to be at home with me for a bit, when Mr. Garth come in and asked her if she would go up and nurse the young lady that had lost her memory. I don’t think she would have gone, only being as it was Mr. Garth she couldn’t well refuse.”

“Why not?” Nurse Gidden asked sharply. “She said in my letter she only came because Mr. Garth Davenant asked her. Who is he?”

“Oh, Mary was so fond of all the Davenants,” said Mrs. Marston, “that I believe she would have gone anywhere for them! I nursed Mr. Garth and Mr. Walter both—Mr. Walter he was delicate, and I was as fond of him as if he had been my own child, and I had Mr. Garth till he was going on for two and I got married. My lady and all of them have been untold good to Mary—it was through her ladyship as she first took up with nursing. I wish she never had now,” the poor woman added, with a catch in her voice. “Maybe she would be here with me safe and sound but for that.”

Nurse Gidden’s bewilderment appeared to increase as she thought the matter over.

“What on earth could have induced her to go off like that! It seems to me”—thoughtfully—“that some one must have had a pretty strong influence over her to induce her first to go away and then to keep her silent all this time. I suppose this—”

“They took the best way of keeping her quiet,” Mrs. Marston interrupted with a groan. “They made sure of that. Do you think anything would have kept my girl from letting me know where she was if she was alive? Her that thought so much of her old mother! If I only knew where they have put her!”

In spite of her strong practical common sense, Charlotte Gidden shuddered, and her rosy, matter-of-fact countenance turned many degrees paler. To her, realizing to the full Mary Marston’s kindly, straightforward nature, as well as her love for her mother, it did seem almost an impossibility that she, knowing the anxiety she must be causing, should keep silence as to her whereabouts for six weeks. Yet she could not bring herself to believe that serious harm could have befallen her friend.

“Perhaps her letters have been stopped?” she cogitated. “Everybody liked Mary who knew her; no one would want to hurt her, I am sure. But somebody must know where she is and have a motive for keeping quiet. The young lady she was nursing—I fancy Mary thought she would not like her speaking out—I suppose she couldn’t have anything to do with it?”

“No, no! She was in bed and unconscious, poor thing! She knew nothing about it. A sweet, pretty young lady she is too!”

Ruth Carson took the answer upon herself.

“Beside, Miss Hargreave was sitting with her; she took the nurse’s place when she went away, and stayed there till they came and told her she was lost. Superintendent Stokes, he called here the other day and asked if Mary had ever a sweetheart.”

“Sweetheart! Rubbish!” Nurse Gidden drew in her lips scornfully. “We nurses have something else to do than run about after them. No! Somebody that Mary thought a lot of must have met her on her way down to Lady Laura’s room and persuaded her to go somewhere else. Now we know that she wouldn’t have gone to the Manor but Mr. Garth Davenant asked her, and she couldn’t refuse him. How if he asked her to go somewhere else that night?”

Ruth laughed.

“Superintendent Stokes, he has always been suspicious that Mr. Garth Davenant knows more about it than he will say, but I have seen a deal of Mr. Garth since I’ve been here. There’s hardly ever a day passes that he doesn’t pop in to ask how Mrs. Marston is, and a nice, civil-spoken young gentleman he is. I don’t think he had any hand in it, though it was funny as his tobacco-pouch should be in the room, as the superintendent says.”

Nurse Gidden pricked up her ears.

“Tobacco-pouch! You didn’t tell me about that!”

“Well, there isn’t much to tell,” Ruth went on, unconsciously colouring her narrative. “Mr. Garth’s tobacco-pouch as Miss Mavis worked for him was found in the small library that night. He might have left it there days before; he said himself he did not know where it was, but he felt sure he hadn’t had it there. He didn’t believe it was his.”

“Well, if Miss Mavis worked it for him they could see it was his.”

“Well, they could,” went on Ruth more slowly, feeling the difficulty of her story. “But when they come to look for it in the morning it was gone—somebody had took it away.”

Charlotte Gidden’s eyes grew more wide open than ever.

“Well, there has been some nice underhand work going on somewhere!” she exclaimed, drawing a long breath. “Nice dunderheads the police down here must be not to have found something out before now! I believe I should have done a lot better myself. I wonder, Mrs. Marston”—her expression grew more thoughtful, a little frown came between her brows—“I have got a week longer at Plymouth, and then my holidays begin—if you haven’t heard of Mary before then, which I expect you will—but I wonder, if I came to Lockford, if you could give me a shakedown. I fancy if I were here on the spot I must find out where she is.”

A gleam of interest lighted up Mrs. Marston’s worn face.

“You can have Mary’s room, and kindly welcome. It is kind of you to think of troubling about my poor girl. I am sure if you can find out anything—” wiping away a tear.

“Then that is settled,” said Charlotte briskly. “I’m much obliged to you, Mrs. Marston. I’ll come and see what I can do. First of all, I should devote some particular attention to Mr. Garth Davenant.”

Mrs. Marston roused herself a little and sat up.

“You needn’t,” she said, excitement gathering in her quavering old tones. “Mr. Garth Davenant wouldn’t have harmed my girl, I know that. The Davenants were always her best friends.”

“Well, well!” Charlotte said soothingly as she took her leave. “I don’t suppose he has harmed her. I can’t bring myself to think that anybody would; but I shall come and look round, Mrs. Marston.”

Ruth attended the visitor to the gate.

“She is breaking up fast,” she said with a backward jerk of her head. “If so be as Mary is well, if she don’t come home soon, she won’t find her mother here.”

Charlotte did not dissent from this view.

“It is the anxiety, and I shouldn’t think she has ever been one of the strongest. Who are these people in the pony carriage?”

Ruth looked up.

“Why, it is Sir Arthur himself and the young lady—the one as Mary went to nurse! Ain’t she a picture?”

The keen eyes of Nurse Gidden glanced critically at Hilda’s fair, flushed face as she smiled up into Sir Arthur’s face.

“Um! Pretty well for that! I wonder whether her hair is that colour naturally? It looks to me as if she had doctored it up a bit. And who pays for her clothes? I suppose she didn’t bring her luggage into the park with her? That grey thing she has got on must have cost a mint of money!”

“I suppose her ladyship must be giving them to her,” hazarded Ruth Carson; “I have heard they think a lot of her.”

“One of them does, it is evident,” remarked Charlotte significantly. “What’ll my lady say to that? A girl dropped from nowhere wouldn’t be everybody’s fancy as a daughter-in-law!”

Ruth Carson raised her hands.

“Oh, Nurse Gidden, what will you say next? Sir Arthur Hargreave wouldn’t so much as think of the likes of her. Besides, I have heard it whispered that he is in love with his cousin, Miss Dorothy Hargreave.”

“Oh, have you?” remarked Charlotte in a satirical tone. “Certainly, then, he would not dream of looking at anybody else, more than Mr. Garth Davenant would think of sending Mary off on some of his dirty work and stopping her letters home.” She picked up her skirts and stepped out into the road. “Ah, you are an innocent lot here at Lockford, all of you! Good afternoon, Ruth Carson.”

Meanwhile, unconscious of the comment they were exciting, Sir Arthur drove his fair model carefully towards the Manor; as they entered the park he checked the ponies and let them walk up the Avenue.

“I was startled a few minutes ago,” he avowed, “when I saw that nurse in the street. She was standing by the Marstons’ cottage, and for a moment I thought it might be Mary.”

Hilda’s pretty colour faded, the smile died out of her eyes.

“Was that the Marstons’ cottage? I did not know,” with a shiver. “And are you positive that it was not Nurse Marston? You could not have seen much of her, and I am sure I should not recognize her myself in different circumstances.”

Sir Arthur smiled.

“I dare say you would not, but I have known Mary Marston by sight for years, and though this woman was about the same build I am quite sure it was not Mary. I wish it had been!”

“So do I!” Hilda said. “I lie awake at night and wonder where she is.”

“Then you must not do anything of the kind,” said Sir Arthur lightly. “Mary Marston will come back again in her own time, no doubt; people are not made away with nowadays at Hargreave Manor.”

“Not at the Manor perhaps, but—” Hilda shuddered.

“Nor anywhere else,” Sir Arthur said, affecting a certainty he was far from feeling. “But I am not going to let you talk about it any more. I want you to come and look at my orchids, will you?”

He threw the reins to the groom as he sprang out. For a moment he fancied she hesitated and a shade of unwillingness passed over her face; then he told himself that he must have been mistaken as she turned to him with a bright smile.

“I shall be delighted, though I don’t know much about orchids!”

Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes looked very bright and restless as Arthur helped her out and led the way across the terrace to the orchid-houses.

“They are not much to boast of,” he said, with becoming humility. “But we have been fortunate enough to secure one or two good specimens, and I have a first-rate man to look after them. Ah, here he is! Well, Gregory, how are you getting on to-day? I have brought this lady to see what you are doing.”

“Well, Sir Arthur, I am glad to say we have something to show you to-day,” the man said respectfully as he stood aside to let them pass. “That last one that Mr. Brookes brought is in bloom.”

“What!” Arthur’s tone was enthusiastic, and he hurried forward. “And a beauty it is, Gregory, pure white, with just that touch of gold in the centre. See, Miss Hilda, this is a root that has never blossomed in this country before! My friend Brookes brought it from the interior of South America, and up till now we have been doubtful whether we had got the atmosphere right. But it seems to have answered; your coming has brought me luck, and you must promise me to wear this first flower to-night. You must let me cut it for you.”

Gregory’s face darkened; quite evidently he grudged this sacrifice.

“Mr. Gribdale has been looking to see it, sir, and maybe he will be over to-morrow.”

“He must wait for the next,” Sir Arthur said recklessly as he opened his knife.

Hilda laid her hand on his arm.

“Please do not, Sir Arthur. It looks so lovely where it is, and I can come and see it every day. It will only last one night if it is cut.”

Sir Arthur looked obstinate. He glanced again at the delicately poised blossom, looking just like some tropical butterfly springing from the gnarled brown root.

“It will be just the thing to wear with your white gown, Miss Hilda,” and he cut it off deliberately and presented it to her.

Gregory’s dark face frowned; evidently he would have openly resented this spoliation if he had dared. Hilda flushed painfully.

“It does seem a shame, Sir Arthur,” she said.

“It is honoured by your wearing it,” he remarked with a glance that made her eyes droop. “Now I must get something for Mavis and Dorothy.”

He moved forward. Hilda turned to Gregory.

“It is a lovely flower, and I am sure it must have given you a great deal of trouble to grow,” she said with a pretty, courteous smile. “I wish you could tell me—”

Sir Arthur, busy among his cattleyas, did not catch the rest of the sentence. His thoughts were occupied with Hilda. How lovely she had looked in her confusion just now, her long light cloak throwing up her brilliant colouring as she bent over the white flower! When he turned round Gregory was standing close to the girl, drawing forward a scarlet orchid of Japan.

“You must!”

Sir Arthur looked up quickly. Gregory’s back was to him, but he could see that Hilda’s eyes were fixed on the man’s face, her red lips were parted. Surely it could not have been to her that Gregory was speaking in that low, brusque tone.

As the young man hesitated her face broke into smiles.

“I am afraid it would be impossible,” she said, “I do not think I should ever have patience. Gregory is giving me some instructions in orchid-growing, Sir Arthur. I am afraid he does not find me an apt pupil.”

“I shall be very pleased to tell you anything that you want to know,” Sir Arthur remarked. “What were you explaining, Gregory?”

“I was just telling the young lady that the Rhenanthera—”

With a little cry Hilda interrupted him:

“Oh, Sir Arthur, please do not make him go over it again—my poor brain gets quite bewildered with all those long names! For the future I shall be quite content to admire the flowers and leave the practical part to you clever people.”

“That will do,” Sir Arthur said curtly to Gregory. “Mind the temperature does not get lowered at night. It has been cold in the evenings all last week.”

Outside he turned to Hilda.

“I could not hear very plainly, but was not that fellow speaking to you in an unwarrantably insolent tone?”

Hilda opened her eyes to their fullest extent.

“Oh, dear, no! Poor man, I think he was just a little disappointed about this,” laying her lips lightly to the blossom she was carrying. “I could not be surprised at that. After having watched it gradually coming into flower he must have felt sad when he saw it carried away. But what a nice, well-informed man he seems to be, Sir Arthur. I quite took a fancy to him.”

“He is very well in his place,” said Arthur, only half convinced. “But if I caught him—if I caught the best man about the place speaking disrespectfully to you, he should go at once.”