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“Ah, If I only knew! It may be that it is my own mother coming to see me, and I, her daughter, know nothing about it!”

“Well, it will soon be settled one way or the other,” remarked Mavis prosaically. “Mrs. Leparge said she would be here early in the morning, and it is nearly eleven now.”

Hilda turned and caught her hands.

“Suppose she is not a nice woman, Mavis? suppose she should say that I am her daughter and take me away with her, and it should be all a lie—I should not be able to contradict her.”

Mavis disengaged herself a little coldly. Since the preceding evening there had been a shade of aloofness in her manner towards Hilda, which so far did not seem to have made itself felt by the other girl.

“Surely you cannot imagine that Arthur would let her interfere with you in any way without having given him full proofs of her claim?”

“He might imagine she had,” said Hilda hopelessly. “Yet they might be forged or something of that kind, might they not? I am very ignorant, Mavis, but the mere thought of this interview frightens me.”

“Don’t think of it then,” Mavis advised. “Let us talk of something else. What do you think of the very palest shade of blush pink for the gown I am to wear at the Tenants’ Ball?”

Hilda threw a quick glance at her betokening anything but amiability, but she made no comment as she dried her eyes and came to the table where Mavis was idly turning over fashion papers.

“Pink is your colour, there is no doubt, and if you had it veiled with some of Lady Laura’s exquisite lace—Mavis, there is a carriage!”

Mavis sprang up.

“Come along,” she cried as she swept both Hilda and the fashion-papers into the conservatory. “You know mother and Arthur want to see her first.”

It was a quiet-looking, middle-aged woman, in a widow’s conventional garb, who rose when Lady Laura and her son entered.

Lady Laura glanced searchingly at the somewhat worn features, at the pale, red-rimmed eyes and weak-looking mouth. Certainly if this were Hilda’s mother she in no wise resembled her daughter, she decided.

“You, I am sure you understood that I could not remain away, Lady Laura,” she began, dashing straight into her subject without offering any preliminary greeting whatever. “The agents I employed wanted me to wait to send photographs, to ask for them from you, but I could not. I felt that I must come straight off as soon as I heard of the poor child’s whereabouts without telling them anything about it. She will remember her mother when she sees her, I said.”

“Still, I am sure you will recognize that we must ask you a few questions before we allow you to see her,” Lady Laura said courteously. Checking her son with a look as he was about to speak, she invited her visitor to sit down and then went on more slowly, “Will you tell me some of your reasons for thinking that Hilda is your daughter?”

“The name, the description, everything tallies,” the other said excitedly. “Lady Laura, you are not going to tell me that she is not my child after all, that I have been deceiving myself with false hopes?”

“No; on the contrary,” Lady Laura said with polite interest, “I think all the probabilities point to Hilda being your daughter. But will you tell me a little of the circumstance under which you lost her?”

Mrs. Leparge passed her handkerchief over her dry lips.

“I can only tell you the facts of the case as they were related to me by the schoolmistress in whose charge I left her, for you must understand that I was abroad; it has been so dreadful to me that I have known nothing—that I have had to rely upon others for everything. She—Miss Chesterton—told me that before Hilda’s disappearance, though unknown to her at the time, it had been a matter of common talk that some man staying at one of the big hotels on the front—did I tell you she was at Brighton?—was always watching for Hilda and following her about when they were out for their walks; they called him ‘The Unknown’ and joked about him, as schoolgirls will. But when—when she went away they remembered it.”

“Surely they had the man traced?” Arthur interposed, his face looking hot and wrathful. “Though I do not for one moment believe that this is—”

“They made inquiries at once,” Mrs. Leparge went on. “He had been known at the hotel as Mr. James Duncan, and his only address given in the books was West Kensington. No such name appears in the directory, and the hotel authorities admit having some reason to believe it to be assumed, but they speak of him as a man apparently possessed of great wealth, and I am convinced that he decoyed my poor darling away.”

“What a dreadful thing!” said Lady Laura, shuddering. “I wonder there was not more said about it in the papers.”

“Oh, Miss Chesterton was like all schoolmistresses!” said Mrs. Leparge impatiently. “She thought first of the credit of the school—my poor Hilda came distinctly second. Lady Laura, when may I see her? You do not realize my anxiety or you would not delay our meeting.”

“One more question,” said Lady Laura, detaining her as she would have risen. “When did this happen? When did your daughter leave her school?”

“On the 29th of May. She was missing when the names were called in the evening, and has never been heard of since.”

“And it was the 6th of June when we found Hilda in the park, was it not, Arthur?” said Lady Laura, turning to her son. “That would leave a week unaccounted for, but still it seems probable.”

Sir Arthur’s face was very gloomy; the prospect of discovering Hilda’s relatives in such circumstances was by no means a pleasing one to him. Moreover, he had taken a somewhat unreasonable dislike to Mrs. Leparge, and did not feel inclined to welcome her as a possible mother-in-law. A sudden thought struck him.

“I should like to show you something first.” He crossed the room and drew aside the curtain that at present concealed the Elaine. “Is that your daughter?” he asked, pointing to the central figure.

Mrs. Leparge put up her lorgnette and surveyed it critically.

“I think it is,” she said in an uncertain tone. “It is her colouring exactly, and the features are a good deal alike, but this looks older and so very sad, and Hilda was always bright and lively. Besides, you must remember, Sir Arthur, that I have not seen her for two years. She was sixteen when I placed her with Miss Chesterton to complete her education, as I was summoned abroad on important business connected with my husband’s estate. Poor darling, I little thought what a home-coming mine would be! If that is all—”

“The age is about the same, though Hilda has always thought she was nineteen,” Lady Laura said with a glance at her son, “but I think now, Arthur—”

She beckoned Mrs. Leparge to the glass doors leading into the conservatory. Inside, on the tessellated pavement, Hilda was standing with her back to them.

Mrs. Leparge looked at her for a moment.

“Oh, her hair is just the same shade as my sister Cecile’s!” She opened the door in spite of Lady Laura’s warning gesture. “Hilda, my darling Hilda!” she cried.

At the first sound of her name Hilda turned quickly, and then stood still, her hand on her heart, her breath coming and going in long palpitating gasps. As Mrs. Leparge hurried towards her she looked at her with frightened eyes, the pupils dilated by emotion.

“Are—are you my mother?” she asked faintly.

Mrs. Leparge, who had hastened forward at first with an air of assured confidence, now appeared to hesitate, her steps faltered, and, as Hilda stood waiting in an attitude of intense expectation, with a low moan Mrs. Leparge dropped into one of the seats.

“Oh, no, no, no! It is not my Hilda—it is a stranger! Oh, my child, my child, where are you?”

Startled, shocked apparently, Hilda did not move forward, but stood motionless, statue-like in her white dress, save that her lips were moving inaudibly.

Sir Arthur hurried to her.

“Hilda, I—”

Lady Laura turned to Mrs. Leparge, disappointment in every line of her face, in every inflection of her voice.

“Do I understand that you have made a mistake— that this is not your daughter?”

Mrs. Leparge’s slight form was still shaking with sobs.

“Ah, no, no! Yet she is so like, so like!” drying her eyes. “No wonder my agent made the mistake! You must forgive me, Lady Laura, for all the trouble I have given you.”

She moved as if to turn away; but Hilda, who had been listening as if frozen into stillness, taking absolutely no notice of Arthur’s attempts at consolation, now walked towards her.

“Tell me, tell me!” she cried. “Are you my mother?”

Mrs. Leparge looked at her mournfully.

“Alas, my child, you are not my Hilda! Where can she be, poor unhappy darling, I dare not think!”

Hilda caught her hands.

“Oh, look—look carefully!” she cried. “Do be quite, quite sure. I want my mother so badly, so very badly. Oh, shall I never know—will it always be like this?”

“Hilda dear,” Mavis began, while Arthur endeavoured unsuccessfully to draw the girl away.

Mrs. Leparge’s whole face quivered as Hilda clung to her.

“I wish you were my child,” she said as she took the girl in her arms. “There! There, dear, you have lost your mother and I have lost my daughter; we ought to be able to comfort one another.” She drew her to one of the garden seats and looked at the others. “She is overcome and disappointed, poor girl!” she said pitifully. “She can hardly realize that she has not found her mother; yet her disappointment can hardly be so great as mine. I think perhaps if I talk to her for a little while she will realize that. Won’t you, dear? You see, my little daughter—”

Already Hilda seemed quieter and rested more calmly in Mrs. Leparge’s arms. Lady Laura motioned Arthur and Mavis to the other end of the conservatory.

“She will be better in a few minutes,” she whispered. ‘Poor girl, it is upsetting for her!”

They stood in a little group by the door, while Mrs. Leparge still held Hilda closely and talked to her in low, caressing tones. The purport of her words did not reach them, but they saw that Hilda was gradually becoming quieter, and that though her face was pale her manner was more composed when Mrs. Leparge rose.

Mavis went softly towards them.

“Remember, it must be done and without delay,” she heard the widow say impressively, as she bent forward and kissed Hilda.

The words and the tone alike struck Mavis as a little odd.

“What is that you are recommending Hilda to do, Mrs. Leparge?” she asked in some curiosity.

The widow turned; for one instant Mavis fancied that she detected a shade of discomposure in her manner.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Hargreave. I had no idea you were there. I was just telling this poor child that she must make up her mind to cease fretting and trying to find out what is evidently concealed from her for some wise purpose and be very thankful that she has found so kind a home. She will make herself ill if she goes on this way, and that will not mend matters. Now, my dear, I must say good-bye. I hope that good news will come to us both soon.”

Hilda suffered, rather than responded to, her embrace; there was an odd passivity about her whole manner; her eyes looked dazed and her colour had for the nonce deserted her.

Mrs. Leparge glanced back longingly as she walked up the conservatory with Lady Laura.

“Poor girl! I really do not know what to say to you, Lady Laura, or how to apologize for the trouble I have caused you. I can see now that I did wrong in coming myself instead of leaving things to the inquiry office, but I can only plead a mother’s anxiety for her only child, which I am sure you can understand and sympathize with.”

“I can indeed,” Lady Laura responded as she allowed her visitor to precede her through the drawing-room door. “It does seem strange that there should be two cases so much alike.”

“Yes, does it not? But I am beginning to be terribly afraid that my own daughter is with that man, James Duncan, as he called himself. It makes me shiver when I think of her and what her fate might be.”

Mavis sat down beside Hilda.

“What was she saying to you, Hilda? It did not sound like that sort of advice, I fancied.”

Hilda looked at her with dazed, bewildered eyes.

“I—I hardly know,” she said hesitatingly. “The usual sort of thing, I think—that I ought not to fret, but to be patient and wait till it is Heaven’s will to restore me to my friends. She meant to be very kind, I am sure; but she does not understand—nobody understands how terrible it is to have only the black darkness behind one.”

“What particular bent has your mind taken this morning, may I ask?” said Arthur, seating himself beside Hilda.

Hilda did not move when he laid his hand over hers; her eyes still looked listlessly in front of her.

“I do not think I shall ever find my mother; I do not think I shall ever recover my memory,” she said hopelessly in a low monotonous tone. “Arthur, you must let me go away now. I will—”

“You will stay here,” Sir Arthur interrupted. “What did Dr. Grieve tell you the other day? It is only a matter of time, and then you will be restored to your mother and your friends. Do not talk of going away, Hilda. What should I do without you?” He raised her cold hand to his lips as he spoke.

It was the first open caress on which he had ventured in his mother’s presence, and that lady frowned.

“As for finding Hilda’s mother,” she said shortly, “I am inclined to think that she has no near relatives; it is inconceivable that if she had, some inquiry about her should not have been made before now, as Mrs. Leparge says.”

“At any rate,” Mavis interposed,” I do not think that Hilda has had any loss in discovering that Mrs. Leparge is not related to her. I took a dislike to her at once.”

“To Mrs. Leparge!” Lady Laura echoed in surprise. “Oh, Mavis, my dear, how absurd! I thought her particularly charming.”

“I did not!” Mavis maintained stoutly. “I did not like her face one little bit; and she had such a curious sidelong way of looking at one. Never once did she meet a glance fully. Didn’t you notice it?”

“No, I did not!” replied Lady Laura tartly. “I think you are becoming very fanciful, Mavis. You should try to cure yourself of it, child; it is a very bad habit. I was feeling too sorry for the poor woman’s disappointment to criticize her. Poor thing, it is too terrible for her, after being so hopeful.”

Mavis was not to be disposed of so easily, and her brown eyes looked mutinous.

“Mrs. Leparge’s eyes were quite dry, though she put her handkerchief to them so much. I noticed them,” she said sceptically. “And I thought the way she was talking to Hilda was rather a curious one. Still it doesn’t matter; we shall not be likely to see any more of her in future.”

“No; but it is very wrong to allow oneself to be prejudiced against people by absurdities like that—things that probably exist only in your own imagination,” Lady Laura said severely.

Poor lady, she was feeling distinctly out of gear with the whole world this morning. Her hope had been that with Hilda’s belongings some barrier to her marriage with Sir Arthur might have been discovered, and, disappointed of this, it was a relief to vent her vexation upon some one.

“Garth says that that sort of thing is an instinct given us for our protection!” Mavis retorted. “He says that he has known of cases in which it has proved—”

Sir Arthur burst into a brotherly laugh.

“Oh, Garth says!” he mimicked. “But Garth is not quite such an authority to all of us as he is to you, my dear Mavis.”