Billy smiled, but she frowned, too.
“Not here! Well, I like that,” she pouted; “—and when I've brought him the most beautiful pair of mirror knobs he ever saw, and all the way in my bag, too, so I could give them to him the very first thing,” she added, darting over to the small bag she had brought in with her. “I'm glad I did, too, for our trunks didn't come,” she continued laughingly. “Still, if he isn't here to receive them—There, Pete, aren't they beautiful?” she cried, carefully taking from their wrappings two exquisitely decorated porcelain discs mounted on two long spikes. “They're Batterseas—the real article. I know enough for that; and they're finer than anything he's got. Won't he be pleased?”
“Yes, Miss—ma'am, I mean,” stammered the old man.
“These new titles come hard, don't they, Pete?” laughed Bertram.
Pete smiled faintly.
“Never mind, Pete,” soothed his new mistress. “You shall call me 'Miss Billy' all your life if you want to. Bertram,” she added, turning to her husband, “I'm going to just run up-stairs and put these in Uncle William's rooms so they'll be there when he comes in. We'll see how soon he discovers them!”
Before Pete could stop her she was half-way up the first flight of stairs. Even then he tried to speak to his young master, to explain that Mr. William was not living there; but the words refused to come. He could only stand dumbly waiting.
In a minute it came—Billy's sharp, startled cry.
“Bertram! Bertram!”
Bertram sprang for the stairway, but he had not reached the top when he met his wife coming down. She was white-faced and trembling.
“Bertram—those rooms—there's not so much as a teapot there! Uncle William's—gone!”
“Gone!” Bertram wheeled sharply. “Pete, what is the meaning of this? Where is my brother?” To hear him, one would think he suspected the old servant of having hidden his master.
Pete lifted a shaking hand and fumbled with his collar.
“He's moved, sir.”
“Moved! Oh, you mean to other rooms—to Cyril's.” Bertram relaxed visibly. “He's upstairs, maybe.”
Pete shook his head.
“No, sir. He's moved away—out of the house, sir.”
For a brief moment Bertram stared as if he could not believe what his ears had heard. Then, step by step, he began to descend the stairs.
“Do you mean—to say—that my brother—has moved-gone away—left—his home?” he demanded.
“Yes, sir.”
Billy gave a low cry.
“But why—why?” she choked, almost stumbling headlong down the stairway in her effort to reach the two men at the bottom. “Pete, why did he go?”
There was no answer.
“Pete,”—Bertram's voice was very sharp—“what is the meaning of this? Do you know why my brother left his home?”
The old man wet his lips and swallowed chokingly, but he did not speak.
“I'm waiting, Pete.”
Billy laid one hand on the old servant's arm—in the other hand she still tightly clutched the mirror knobs.
“Pete, if you do know, won't you tell us, please?” she begged.
Pete looked down at the hand, then up at the troubled young face with the beseeching eyes. His own features worked convulsively. With a visible effort he cleared his throat.
“I know—what he said,” he stammered, his eyes averted.
“What was it?”
There was no answer.
“Look here, Pete, you'll have to tell us, you know,” cut in Bertram, decisively, “so you might as well do it now as ever.”
Once more Pete cleared his throat. This time the words came in a burst of desperation.
“Yes, sir. I understand, sir. It was only that he said—he said as how young folks didn't need any one else around. So he was goin'.”
“Didn't need any one else!” exclaimed Bertram, plainly not comprehending.
“Yes, sir. You two bein' married so, now.” Pete's eyes were still averted.
Billy gave a low cry.
“You mean—because I came?” she demanded.
“Why, yes, Miss—no—that is—” Pete stopped with an appealing glance at Bertram.
“Then it was—it was—on account of me,” choked Billy.
Pete looked still more distressed
“No, no!” he faltered. “It was only that he thought you wouldn't want him here now.”
“Want him here!” ejaculated Bertram.
“Want him here!” echoed Billy, with a sob.
“Pete, where is he?” As she asked the question she dropped the mirror knobs into her open bag, and reached for her coat and gloves—she had not removed her hat.
Pete gave the address.
“It's just down the street a bit and up the hill,” he added excitedly, divining her purpose. “It's a sort of a boarding-house, I reckon.”
“A boarding-house—for Uncle William!” scorned Billy, her eyes ablaze. “Come, Bertram, we'll see about that.”
Bertram reached out a detaining hand.
“But, dearest, you're so tired,” he demurred. “Hadn't we better wait till after dinner, or till to-morrow?”
“After dinner! To-morrow!” Billy's eyes blazed anew. “Why, Bertram Henshaw, do you think I'd leave that dear man even one minute longer, if I could help it, with a notion in his blessed old head that we didn't want him?”
“But you said a little while ago you had a headache, dear,” still objected Bertram. “If you'd just eat your dinner!”
“Dinner!” choked Billy. “I wonder if you think I could eat any dinner with Uncle William turned out of his home! I'm going to find Uncle William.” And she stumbled blindly toward the door.
Bertram reached for his hat. He threw a despairing glance into Pete's eyes.
“We'll be back—when we can,” he said, with a frown.
“Yes, sir,” answered Pete, respectfully. Then, as if impelled by some hidden force, he touched his master's arm. “It was that way she looked, sir, when she came to you—that night last July—with her eyes all shining,” he whispered.
A tender smile curved Bertram's lips. The frown vanished from his face.
“Bless you, Pete—and bless her, too!” he whispered back. The next moment he had hurried after his wife.
The house that bore the number Pete had given proved to have a pretentious doorway, and a landlady who, in response to the summons of the neat maid, appeared with a most impressive rustle of black silk and jet bugles.
No, Mr. William Henshaw was not in his rooms. In fact, he was very seldom there. His business, she believed, called him to State Street through the day. Outside of that, she had been told, he spent much time sitting on a bench in the Common. Doubtless, if they cared to search, they could find him there now.
“A