"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."

* * * * *