When Gertrude reached her room she flung herself on the bed, and lay there passive, with face buried from the light.

She was worn out, poor girl, with the strain of the recent weeks; a period into which a lifetime of events, thoughts, and experience seemed to have crowded themselves.

Action, or thoughts concerned with plans of action, had become for the moment impossible to her.

She realised, with a secret thrill of horror, that the moment had at length come when she must look full in the face the lurking anguish of which none but herself knew the existence; and which, in the press of more immediate miseries, she had hitherto contrived to keep well in the background of her thoughts. Only, she had known dimly throughout, that face it she must, sooner or later; and now her hour had come.

There was some one, bound to her by every tie but the tie of words, who had let the days of her trouble go by and had made no sign; a fair-weather friend, who had fled before the storm.

In these few words are summed up the whole of Gertrude's commonplace story.

Only to natures as proud and as passionate as hers, can the words convey their full meaning.

She was not a woman easily won; not till after long siege had come surrender; but surrender, complete, unquestioning, as only such a woman can give.

Now, her being seemed shaken at the foundations, hurt at the vital roots. As a passionate woman will, she thought: "If it had been his misfortune, not mine!"

In the hall lay a bit of pasteboard with "sincere condolence" inscribed on it; and Gertrude had not failed to learn, from various sources, of the presence at half a dozen balls of the owner of the card, and his projected visit to India.

Gertrude rose from the bed with a choked sound, which was scarcely a cry, in her throat. She had looked her trouble fairly in the eyes; had not, as some women would have done, attempted to save her pride by refusing to acknowledge its existence; but from the depths of her humiliation, had called upon it by its name. Now for ever and ever she turned from it, cast it forth from her; cast forth other things, perhaps, round which it had twined itself; but stood there, at least, a free woman, ready for action.

Thank God for action; for the decree which made her to some extent the arbiter of other destinies, the prop and stay of other lives. For the moment she caught to her breast and held as a friend that weight of responsibility which before had seemed—and how often afterwards was to seem—too heavy and too cruel a burden for her young strength.

"And now," she said, setting her lips, "for a clearance."

Soon the floor was strewn with a heap of papers, chiefly manuscripts, whose dusty and battered air would have suggested to an experienced eye frequent and fruitless visits to the region of Paternoster Row.

Gertrude, kneeling on the floor, bent over them with anxious face, setting some aside, consigning others ruthlessly to the waste-paper basket. One, larger and more travel-worn than the rest, she held some time in her hand, as though weighing it in the balance. It was labelled: Charlotte Corday; a tragedy in five acts; and for a time its fate seemed uncertain; but it found its way ultimately to the basket.

A smart tap at the door roused Gertrude from her somewhat melancholy occupation.

"Come in!" she cried, pushing back the straying locks from the ample arch of her forehead, but retaining her seat among the manuscripts.

The handle turned briskly, and a blooming young woman, dressed in the height of fashion, entered the room.

"My dear Gertrude, what's this? Rachel weeping among her children?"

She spoke in high tones, but with an exaggeration of buoyancy which bespoke nervousness. When last these friends had met, it had been in the chamber of death itself; it was a little difficult, after that solemn moment, to renew the every-day relations of life without shock or jar.

"Come in, Conny, and if you must quote the Bible, don't misquote it."

Constance Devonshire, heedless of her magnificent attire, cast herself down by the side of her friend, and put her arms caressingly round her. Her quick blue eye fell upon the basket with its overflowing papers.

"Gerty, what is the meaning of this massacre of the innocents?"

"'Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher,' since you seem bent on Scriptural allusion, Conny."

"But, Gerty, all your tales and things! I should have thought"—she blushed as she made the suggestion—"that you might have sold them. And Charlotte Corday, too!"

"Poor Charlotte, she has been to market so often that I cannot bear the sight of her; and now I have given her her quietus as the Republic gave it to her original. As for the other victims, they are not worth a tear, and we will not discuss them."

She gathered up the remaining manuscripts, and put them in a drawer; then, turning to her friend with a smile, demanded from her an account of herself.

Miss Devonshire's presence, alien as it was to her present mood, acted with a stimulating effect on Gertrude. To Conny she knew herself to be a very tower of strength; and such knowledge is apt to make us strong, at least for the time being.

"Oh, there's nothing new about me!" answered Conny, wrinkling her handsome, discontented face. "Gerty, why won't you come to us, you and Lucy, and let the others go to India?"

Gertrude laughed at this summary disposal of the family.

"Of course I knew you wouldn't come," said Conny, in an injured voice; "but, seriously, Gerty, what are you going to do?"

In a few words Gertrude sketched the plan which she had propounded to her sisters that morning.

"I don't believe it is possible," said Miss Devonshire, with great promptness; "but it sounds very nice," she added with a sigh, and thought, perhaps, of her own prosperous boredom.

The bell rang for tea, and Gertrude began brushing her hair. Constance endeavoured to seize the brush from her hands.

"You are not coming down, my dear, indeed you are not! You are going to lie down, while I go and fetch your tea."

"I had much rather not, Conny. I am quite well."

"You look as pale as a ghost. But you always have your own way. By the by, Fred is downstairs; he walked over with me from Queen's Gate. He's the only person who is decently civil in the house, just at present."

Tea had been carried into the studio, where the two girls found the rest of the party assembled. Fan, with an air of elegance, as though conscious of performing an essentially womanly function, and with much action of the little finger, was engaged in pouring out tea. In the middle of the room stood a group of three people: Lucy, Phyllis, and Fred Devonshire, a tall, heavy young man, elaborately and correctly dressed, with a fatuous, good-natured, pink and white face.

"Oh, come now, Miss Lucy," he was heard to say, as Gertrude entered with his sister; "that really is too much for one to swallow!"

"He won't believe it!" cried Phyllis, clasping her hands, and turning her charming face to the new-comers; "it's quite true, isn't it, Gerty?"

"Have you been telling tales out of school?"

"Lucy and I have been explaining the plan to Fred, and he won't believe it."

Gertrude felt a little vexed at this lack of reticence on their part; but then, she reflected, if the plan was to be carried out, it could remain no secret, especially to the Devonshires. Assured that there really was some truth in what he had been told, Fred relapsed into an amazed silence, broken by an occasional chuckle, which he hastened, each time, to subdue, considering it out of place in a house of mourning.

He had long regarded the Lorimer girls as quite the most astonishing productions of the age, but this last freak of theirs, as he called it, fairly took away his breath. He was a soft-hearted youth, moreover, and the pathetic aspect of the case presented itself to him with great force in the intervals of his amusement.

Constance had brought a note from her mother, and having delivered it, and had tea, she rose to go. Fred remained lost in abstraction, muttering, "By Jove!" below his breath at intervals, the chuckling having subsided.

"Come on, Fred!" cried his sister.

He sprang to his feet.

"Are you slowly recovering from the shock we have given you?" asked Lucy, demurely, as she held out her hand.

"Miss Lucy," he said, solemnly, looking at her with all his foolish eyes, "I'll come every day of the week to be photographed, if I may, and so shall all the fellows at our office!"

He was a little hurt and disconcerted, though he joined in the laugh himself, when every one burst out laughing; even Lucy, to whom he had addressed himself as the least puzzling and most reliable of the Miss Lorimers.

Gertrude walked down the drive with the brother and sister, a colourless, dusky, wind-blown figure beside their radiant smartness, and let them out herself at the big gate. Here she lingered a moment, while the wind lifted her hair, and fanned her face, bringing a faint tinge of red to its paleness.

Phyllis and Lucy opened the door of the studio which led to the garden, and stood there arm-in-arm, soothed no less than Gertrude by the chill sweetness of the April afternoon. The sound of carriage wheels roused them from the reverie into which both of them had fallen, and in another moment a brougham, drawn by two horses, was seen to round the curve of the drive and make its way to the house.

The two girls retreated rapidly, shutting the door behind them.

"Great heavens, Aunt Caroline!" said Lucy, in dismay.

"She must have passed Gertrude at the gate; Fanny, do you hear who has come?"

"Kettle must take the tea into the drawing-room," said Fanny, in some agitation. "You know Mrs. Pratt does not like the studio."

Phyllis was peeping through the panes of the door, which afforded a view of the entrance of the house.

"She is getting out now; the footman has opened the carriage door, and Kettle is on the steps. Oh, Lucy, if Aunt Caroline had been a horse, what a hard mouth she would have had!"

In another moment a great swish of garments and the sound of a metallic voice were heard in the drawing-room, which adjoined the conservatory; and Kettle, appearing at the entrance which divided the two rooms, announced lugubriously: "Mrs. Septimus Pratt!"

A tall, angular woman, heavily draped in the crispest, most aggressive of mourning garments, was sitting upright on a sofa when the girls entered the drawing-room. She was a handsome person of her age, notwithstanding a slightly equine cast of countenance, and the absence of anything worthy the adjectives graceful or sympathique from her individuality.

Mrs. Septimus Pratt belonged to that mischievous class of the community whose will and energy are very far ahead of their intellect and perceptions. She had a vulgar soul and a narrow mind, and unbounded confidence in her own judgments; but she was not bad-hearted, and was animated, at the present moment, by a sincere desire to benefit her nieces.

"How do you do, girls?" she said, speaking in that loud, authoritative key which many benevolent persons of her sex think right to employ when visiting their poorer neighbours. "Yes, please, Fanny, a cup of tea and some bread-and-butter. Cake? No, thank you. I didn't expect to find cake!"

This last sentence, uttered with a sort of ponderous archness, as though to take off the edge of the implied rebuke, was received in unsmiling silence; even Fanny choking down in time a protest which rose to her lips.

With a sinking of the heart, Lucy heard the handle of the door turn, and saw Gertrude enter, pale, severe, and distant.

"How do you do, Gerty?" cried Aunt Caroline, "though this is not our first meeting. How came you to be standing at the gate, without your hat, and in that shabby gown?"

For Gertrude happened to be wearing an old black dress, having taken off the new mourning garment before clearing out the dusty papers.

"I beg your pardon, Aunt Caroline?"

The opposition between these two women may be said to have dated from the cradle of one of them.

"You ought to know at your age, Gertrude," went on Mrs. Pratt, "that now, of all times, you must be careful in your conduct; and among other things, you can none of you afford to be seen looking shabby."

Mrs. Septimus spoke, it must be owned, with considerable unction. She really meant well by her nieces, as I have said before, but at the same time she was very human; and that circumstances should, as she imagined, have restored to her the right of speaking authoritatively to those independent maidens, was a chance not to be despised. Gertrude, once discussing her, had said that she was a person without respect, and, indeed, a reverence for humanity, as such, could not be reckoned among her virtues.

There was a pause after her last remark, and then, to the surprise and consternation of every one, Fanny flung herself into the breach.

"Mrs. Pratt," she said, vehemently, "we are poor, and we are not ashamed that any one should know it. It is nothing to be ashamed of; and Gertrude is the last person to do anything wrong; and I believe you know that as well as I do!"

Poor Fan's heroics broke off suddenly, as she encountered the steel-grey eye of Mrs. Pratt fixed upon her in astonishment.

Opposition in any form always shocked her inexpressibly; she really felt it to be a sort of sacrilege; but Frances Lorimer was such a poor creature, that one could do nothing but pity her, trampled upon as she was by her younger sisters.

"Fanny is right," said Gertrude, trusting herself to speak, "we are very poor."

"Now do you know exactly how you stand?" went on Aunt Caroline, who allowed herself all the privileges of a near relation in the matter of questions.

"It is not known yet, exactly," answered Lucy, hastily, "but Mr. Devonshire and our father's lawyer, and, I thought, uncle Septimus, are going into the matter after the sale."

"So your uncle tells me. He tells me also that there will be next to nothing for you girls. Have you made up your minds what you are going to do? Which of you goes out to the Sebastian Lorimers? I hear they have telegraphed for two. I should say Fanny and Phyllis had better go; the others are better able to look after themselves."

Silence; but not in the least disconcerted, Aunt Caroline went on.

"It is a pity that none of you has married; girls don't seem to marry in these days!" (with some complacency, the well-disciplined, well-dowered daughters of the house of Pratt being in the habit of "going off" in due order and season) "but India works wonders sometimes in that respect."

"Oh, let me go to India, Gerty!" cried Phyllis, in a very audible aside, while Gertrude bent her head and bit her lip, controlling the desire to laugh hysterically, which the naÏve character of her aunt's last remark had excited.

"Now, Gertrude and Lucy," continued the speaker, "I am empowered by your uncle" (poor Septimus!) "to offer you a home for as long as you like. Either as a permanency, or until you have found suitable occupations."

"We are in India, Fan, that's why there is no mention of us," whispered naughty Phyllis.

"Aunt Caroline," broke in Gertrude, suddenly, lifting her head and speaking with great decision. "You are very kind, and we thank you. But we contemplate other arrangements."

"My dear Gertrude, other arrangements! And what 'arrangements,' pray, do you 'contemplate'?"

"Fanny, Lucy, Phyllis, shall I tell Aunt Caroline?"

They all consented; Fanny, whose willingness to join them had seemed before a doubtful matter, with the greatest promptness of them all.

"We think of going into business as photographers."

Gertrude dropped her bomb without delight. For a moment she saw herself and her sisters as they were reflected in the mind of Mrs. Septimus Pratt: naughty children, idle dreamers.

Aunt Caroline refused to be shocked, and Gertrude felt that her bomb had turned into a pea from a pea-shooter.

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Pratt. "Gertrude, I wonder that you haven't more common sense. And before your younger sisters, too. But common sense," with unpleasant emphasis, "was never a family characteristic."

Lucy, who had remained silent and watchful throughout the last part of the discussion, if discussion it could be called, now rose to her feet.

"Aunt Caroline," she said in her clear young voice; "will you excuse us if we refuse to discuss this matter with you at present? We have decided nothing; indeed, how could we decide? Gertrude wrote yesterday to an old friend of our father's, who has the knowledge and experience we want; and we are waiting now for his advice."

"I think you are a set of wilful, foolish girls," cried Mrs. Pratt, losing her temper at last; "and heaven knows what will become of you! You are my dead sister's children, and I have my duties towards you, or I would wash my hands of you all from this hour. But your uncle shall talk to you; perhaps you will listen to him; though there's no saying."

She rose from her seat, with a purple flush on her habitually pale face, and without deigning to go through the formalities of farewell, swept from the room, followed by Lucy.

"A good riddance!" cried Fan. She too was flushed and excited, poor soul, with defiance.

Lucy, coming back from leading her aunt to the carriage, found Gertrude silent, pale, and trembling with rage. "How dare she!" she said below her breath.

"She is only very silly," answered Lucy; "I confess I began to wonder if I was an ill-conducted pauper, or a lunatic, or something of the sort, from the tone of her voice."

"She spoke so loud," said Gertrude, pressing her hand to her head.

"I never felt so labelled and docketed in my life," cried Phyllis; "This is a poor person, seemed to be written all over my clothes. Poor Fred's chuckles and 'By Joves' were much more comfortable."

Kettle came into the room with a letter addressed to Miss G. Lorimer.

"It is from Mr. Russel," she said, examining the postmark, and broke the seal with anxious fingers.

Mr. Russel was the friend of their father to whom she had applied for advice the day before. He carried on a large and world-famed business as a photographer in the north of England; to the disgust of a family that had starved respectably on scholarship for several generations.

Gertrude's mobile face brightened as she read the letter. "Mr. Russel is most encouraging," she said; "and very kind. He is actually coming to London to talk it over with us, and examine our work. And he even hints that one of us should go back with him to learn about things; but perhaps that will not be necessary."

Every one seized on the kind letter, and the air was filled with the praises of its writer, Fanny even going so far as to call him a darling.

Gertrude, walking up and down the room, stopped suddenly and said: "Let us make some good resolutions!"

"Yes," cried Phyllis, with her usual frankness; "let us pave the way to hell a little!"

"Firstly, we won't be cynical."

The motion was carried unanimously.

"Secondly, we will be happy."

This motion was carried, with even greater enthusiasm than the preceding one.

"Thirdly," put in Phyllis, coming up behind her sister, laying her nut-brown head on her shoulder, and speaking in tones of mock pathos: "Thirdly, we will never, never mention that we have seen better days!"

Thus, with laughing faces, they stood up and defied the Fates.