"Mother!" The word in his grave man's voice thrilled her as once had the touch of his baby hands. "I am afraid to look at you, my son. How is it with you?" "I am all right, mother. How are things here?" "Oh, don't speak of us! Did you get my letter?" "This morning." "And you read it, Willy?" "Of course." There was a silence. Mrs. Thorne clasped her son's arm and leaned her head against it. "I am sorry you worried so, mother." "What does it matter about me?" "I am sorry you took it so hard--because--I knew it all the time." "You knew it! What do you mean?" "A nice old lady told me. She was staying in the house. She cornered me and told me a long story--the day after I met Miss Benedet." "What an infamous old woman!" "She called herself a friend of yours--warned me for your sake, she said, and because she has sons of her own." "Oh! Has she daughters?" "Two--staying in the house." "I see. She told it brutally, I suppose?" "Quite so." "Worse than I did, Willy?" William the Silent held his peace. "You did not believe it? How much of it did you believe?" "Mother," he said, "do you think a man can't see what a girl is?" "But what do you know about girls?" "Where is she?" "What!" "Where is Helen? The man from Lord's said he brought her out here last night." "Did you not get her letter?" Mrs. Thorne evaded. "Where shall I find her?" "Willy, I am a perjured woman! I have been making mischief steadily for two days." "You might as well go on, mater." Willy beamed gravely upon his mother's career of dissimulation. "Don't, for pity's sake, be hopeful! She said she would not see you for worlds." "Then she hasn't gone." Willy took a quick survey of the premises. He had long gray eyes and a set mouth. He saw most things that he looked at, and when he aimed for a thing he usually got somewhere near the mark. "She is not in the house," he decided; "she is not on the hill--remains the garden." * * * * * Mrs. Thorne stood alone, meditating on Miss Benedet's trust in her. She saw her husband, her stool of repentance and her mercy-seat in one, plodding toward her contentedly across the soft garden ground, stepping between the lettuces and avoiding the parsley bed. He knocked off a huge fat kitchen weed with his cane. "Where is that girl?" he said. "It's time you got your things on. We ought to be starting in ten minutes." "If you can find Willy you'll probably find 'that girl'!" Mrs. Thorne explained, and then proceeded to explain further, as she walked with her husband back to the house. "Well," he summed up, "what is your opinion of the universe up to date? Got any faith in anything left?" THE MAID'S PROGRESS