CHAPTER XXXV.

OUTSIDE THE GREAT NORTHERN.

WHILE Gertrude was away, Mrs. Leigh was surrounded by her audience of young people, who did not know how time passed in their interest in the beautiful young mother and her little invalid.

"I cannot think how you can bear it all!" said Mollie, as they stood gazing at the little impassive face.

"Do you really want to know, Mollie?" asked Mrs. Leigh, taking the tall girl's hand in hers.

"Oh, I was only wondering. Some people can bear things better than others, I suppose."

Mollie drew her hand away a little shyly.

Mrs. Leigh did not reply, but continued to look down at her child thoughtfully.

"I don't believe it is that," said Hugh in an undertone to Daisy. "Mrs. Leigh looks as if a breath would blow her away; it is not that she is stronger than most people."

Daisy shook her head assentingly, but Rose had heard the remark, so she said—

"It would be very wrong of me to take the credit to myself, Daisy. I could not bear it at all if it were not for looking up from moment to moment to Jesus. He is my refuge; were it not for Him I should be distracted."

Hugh smiled brightly. In his own little difficulties he had found it the same. How wonderful it was that the Lord Jesus could be just the Friend for everybody!—he thought.

When Gertrude came in from the Strange House, a telegraph boy was at the door, and handed in an envelope as the maid opened to her.

"It is for my sister," she said, and ran up-stairs with it.

"Fritz wants one of us to meet him at Euston," said Rose, when she had read it. "I cannot leave Lester. Will you go, Gertrude? Do you think Mrs. Shaddock would spare you?"

"But he will be here half an hour after," objected Gertrude; "is it not almost a pity—"

"Perhaps he wishes to hear all particulars before he gets here," said Rose. "At any rate, he says, 'Will Gertrude meet me, or you?' It is evident he wants one of us."

So Mrs. Shaddock was again consulted. And soon Gertrude set off, Conway, who had just returned from school, volunteering to escort her if she wished.

But she rightly guessed that her brother-in-law would prefer to hear all the sad story without a stranger being there, so she went alone.

As she stood on the arrival platform of the great terminus, with the screaming whistles round her, the buzz of the coming and going trains, the roar of London outside, she felt as if the world of Hampstead and that quiet bedside were far-away and indistinct; as if she could hardly belong to both.

She wondered vaguely what the next few hours would bring to her and her sister; what Fritz would decide about his invalid child; how he would bear the shock of her intelligence; and while she was thinking all this, she was conscious that the porters, who had been waiting about, suddenly seemed to be alert, the cabs made a move to draw up at the other side of the platform, and when she looked down the dim lines, two great eyes seemed to come creeping towards her, and in a moment the long train from the north was in the station.

She stood back, almost bewildered, for in her quiet life at home she had never seen such confusion or bustle before.

Where was her brother-in-law? Had he not come after all? She looked hopelessly up and down the emptying carriages, but no Fritz was emerging from them, that she could see.

Then a hand was laid upon hers, and a voice said so like Fritz's that she thought it was his, and yet—no, it was not Fritz who said in that tone—

"Gertrude! At last! Did you think we had not come?"

"Otto!" she said.

And then Fritz came hurrying up, too, followed by a porter with two portmanteaus.

"I hoped you would come," said Fritz at once, "because Otto would have been so disappointed not to see you, and we must drop him at the Great Northern Hotel as we pass. I could not bring him on to Mrs. Shaddock's, could I?"

"You 'could,'" said Gertrude, watching the portmanteaus being thrown on to the cab, and wondering what she ought to say. "But if you have made arrangements otherwise, perhaps it would be better. But they are the kindest people I ever saw."

Otto was holding the cab door open; she got in, and in a moment they were off.

"Tell me all!" said Fritz. "I felt as if I must bear it before I saw him. What is it?—What has happened to him?"

Before Gertrude had said more than a few words, the cab drew up at the Great Northern, and Otto had come to his destination.

"I cannot say good-bye yet," he exclaimed. "Have my luggage put in here, Fritz, and order our rooms. I will go on to Hampstead and come back again by and by."

Fritz got out to give the desired order, and Gertrude and Otto looked after him.

How well afterwards Gertrude remembered that ceaseless roar of omnibuses and cabs passing and repassing along the crowded street.

"Gertrude," said Otto's voice, "can we not manage to go somewhere together to-morrow? I have one day in Town, and I feel as if I could not go home again without seeing you?"

"I do not know, Otto. I cannot plan my own days now; already I feel I have run away from my pupils dreadfully."

"Bring them with you," he said hastily; "we will go to the Kensington Museum, or somewhere, to-morrow afternoon. There will be the doctor in the morning. Oh, Gertrude! If you only knew—"

Then Fritz came hurrying back and jumped into the cab, and they were off again.

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