"I was in the cage all among Bostock's beasts," she explained gazing at her companion with sad eyes, "and I looked up and saw Jem. He was trying to tear down the bars of the cage and calling out to me, but I wouldn't listen or look at him again. I didn't want to see him, you see." Meg hid her face again and shook with sobs. "My dear child you must remember it was only a dream," said Miss Gregson kindly. She put her hand on the bowed head and gave it a kind little pat. "But," sobbed the girl, "if Jem came now and I heard him call to me I'm not quite sure that I'd go.'' "But I don't suppose Jem is ever likely to come, and if he did I'm not at all sure that it would not be right for you to run away from him." Meg raised her head and looked at her companion. "You don't know Jem," she said softly, "nor how good he was to me." No, Miss Gregson did not know Jem, but she knew enough of the world to believe that no event could probably be worse for the girl before her than to find her old companion and chum. She did not suppose that he was unlike other tramps. But she kept her thoughts to herself. "Well, dear child, I think you had better put your dream quite out of your head, and get something to occupy your mind at once," and with a kind smile she left the room. But Meg could not so easily forget her dream. All through the day she kept asking herself the question, "Do I love Jem less just because I have now so much more? Could I possibly share the old life again with him? the hardships, the squalor, the hunger? And yet Jem was my best and only friend in those days, and if it had not been for him I should never have lived to have the good things that I now have." The question worried and harassed her, and took away from the pleasure of motoring, in the afternoon, to a place twenty miles away which was famed for its ruined castle and lovely view, an expedition to which she had looked forward eagerly. "If you think of that young man any more," said Sheila severely, after some time of silence, "I shall turn back. You are most uninteresting this afternoon." So the girl had to pull herself together and banish thoughts of Jem and his voice calling her. CHAPTER XI SHEILA IS NOT PLEASED MEG was sitting under the chestnut tree preparing her lesson for Miss Gregson. A tempting array of cakes and biscuits were on the table before her, and Walter, the butler, was simply waiting for the return of Sheila and Miss Gregson, who had driven into the town to shop and to change the library books, to bring up the hot buttered toast and tea. Meg was dressed in white, with a bunch of carnations at her waist. Her auburn hair, picturesquely arranged at the back of her head, was shining in the sunlight which came in patches through the leaves of the tree.