"You've given away my rose," he cried, "the rose I gived to you this morning. She shouldn't have done it, should she mother." "I'm sorry," said Meg laughing, "but I couldn't help it. When you're a man you'll understand. Come give me a kiss and make it up." But Willie would not be reconciled, he gave her a kick instead. The kick hurt the girl, but she scarcely felt it, her mind was full of the joy of seeing Jem again. Mrs. Webb began to think that after all perhaps Meg might be speaking the truth. "Are you sure it was Jem?" she asked doubtfully. "Sure! How could I make a mistake? And he's forgiven me. I believe he's looking for me, and if so he'll find me. He found me last time." The rest of the day passed like a dream to Meg. She lay out on the heath in the sunshine with a heart full of happiness. "Jem will find me," she kept thinking, "and he's forgiven me." CHAPTER XXII REMORSE MISS GREGSON'S knitting was a source of real comfort to her during this time. It soothed her troubled mind, for not only did the thought of Meg sadden her, but also Sheila's extraordinary callousness. While Mr. Fortescue was leaving no stone unturned in his efforts to get a clue to Meg's whereabouts, Sheila threw herself into every kind of gaiety, in apparent complete forgetfulness of her cruel behaviour towards her protégé. Miss Gregson watched her employer with surprise and concern. It would have consoled her to know that the girl passed many a restless miserable night, shedding tears of remorse when no one could see her. Her pride forbade her showing any anxiety before others, being determined that she would give them no excuse for thinking that she considered herself to blame in the matter. But in the presence of her cousin Peter Fortescue, her pride had no place. He had not hidden from her what he thought of her conduct; and had told her plainly that he felt ashamed to think that one of his own family could have acted in the way she had done. More than once the girl had been reduced to tears before him. He told her that he blamed himself and everyone who had had to do with her, in giving way to her fancies and combining together to spoil her. They ought to have seen to it too, that she did not live in such culpable ignorance of the world of sin and sorrow around her. They had hidden sad facts, instead of enlightening her in such a way as to help her to feel for and sympathise with the misery of her fellow creatures. But this did not, he explained, exonerate Sheila in the least from the severest blame for her heartless conduct.