Gertrude explained that she did not intend leaving the house till the afternoon, but that the other two were to go on at once to Queen's Gate, and not keep Mrs. Devonshire waiting for lunch. This, after some protest, they consented to do; and in a few moments Gertrude Lorimer was standing alone in the familiar garden, from which she was soon to be shut out for ever. Pacing slowly up and down the oft-trodden path, she strove to collect her thoughts; to review, at leisure, the events of the last few days. Her avowed contempt of the popular idol Common Sense notwithstanding, her mind teemed with practical details, with importunate questionings as to ways and means. These matters seemed more perplexing without the calm and soothing influence of Lucy's presence; for Lucy had been borne off by the benevolent and eccentric Mr. Russel for a three-months' apprenticeship in his own flourishing establishment. "I will see that your sister learns something of the management of a business, besides improving herself in those technical points which we have already discussed," had been his parting assurance. "While, as for you, Miss Lorimer, I depend on you to look round, and be on a fair way to settling down by the time the three months are up. Perhaps, one of these days, we shall prevail on you to pay us a visit yourself." It had been decided that for the immediate present Gertrude and Phyllis should avail themselves of the Devonshires' invitation; while Fan, borne down by the force of a superior will, had been prevailed upon to seek a temporary refuge at the house of Mrs. Septimus Pratt. Poor Aunt Caroline had been really shocked and pained by the firm, though polite, refusal of her nieces to accept her hospitality. Their differences of opinion notwithstanding, she could see no adequate cause for it. If her skin was thick, her heart was not of stone; and it chagrined her to think that her dead sister's children should, at such a time, prefer the house of strangers to her own. But the young people were obdurate; and she had had at last to content herself with Fan, who was a poor creature, and only a spurious sort of relation after all. Reviewing one by one all those facts which bore upon her present case; setting in order her thoughts; and gathering up her energies for the fight to come; Gertrude felt her pulses throb, and her bosom glow with resolve. Of the darker possibilities of human nature and of life, this girl--who believed herself old, and experienced--had no knowledge, save such as had come to her in brief flashes of insight, in passing glimpses scarcely realised or remembered. Even had circumstances given her leisure, she was not a woman to have brooded over the one personal injury which had been dealt her; her pride was too deep and too delicate for this; rather she recoiled from the thought of it, as from an unclean contact.