Mavis was recalled to the immediate present by an arm stealing about her neck; she thrilled at the touch of the man who had entered the room unobserved; her lips sought his.

"Ready, darling?" he asked.

"If you are."

She caught up her sunbonnet, which had been thrown on one side, to hand it to him.

"You put it on me," she said.

When he had expended several unnecessary moments in adjusting the bonnet, they made as if they would start.

"Got everything you want?" he asked, looking round the room.

"I think so. Take my sunshade."

"Right o'."

"My gloves."

"I've got 'em."

"My handkerchief."

"I've got it."

"Now kiss me."

His all too eager lips met on hers.

"Now we can start," she remarked.

She stood on the steps of the little hotel, while Perigal grasped a luncheon basket.

"Quick march!" he cried.

"Wait one moment. I so love the sunlight," she replied.

"Little pagan!"

She stood silent, while the rays of the September sun warmly caressed her face and neck.

She looked about her, to see that the sky was on all sides a faultless blue, with every prospect of its continuance.

"One of the rare days I love," she murmured.

She shut her eyes to appreciate further the sun's warmth.

"If it were only like this all the year round," she thought.

"This is going to be all my day," she said to Perigal, who was impatiently awaiting her. "I want to enjoy every moment of it for all I am worth."

They turned to the left, walking up the road to the hamlet of Crumplehorn; when they reached the mill, worked by the stream which crosses the road, they turned sharp to the left and continued to ascend. Their progress was accompanied by the music of moving water, the singing of larks. When they emerged on the Fowey road, they caught frequent glimpses of the sea, which they lost as they approached Llansallas. Arrived at this tiny, forgotten village, there was not a sign of the sea, although Perigal had been told at the inn that he would find it here. He asked the way, to be directed to a corner of the churchyard from which a track led to the shore. To their surprise, this path proved to be a partially dry watercourse which, as it wound in a downward direction, was presently quite shut in by an overgrowth of bushes. Mavis, sorry to lose the sunlight, if only for a few minutes, was yet pleased at exploring this mysterious waterway. Now and again, where the water had collected in wide pools, she had, with Perigal's assistance, to make use of stepping stones, to espy which was often difficult. They picked their way down and down for quite a long time, till Mavis began to wonder if they would ever discover an outlet. When, at last, the passage was seen to emerge into a blaze of sunlight, they ran like children to see who would be out first. In a few moments they were blinking their eyes to accustom these to the sudden sunlight. It was hard to believe that the sun had been shining while their way had been steeped in gloom. When they were shortly able to look about them, they glanced at one another, to see if the spot they reached had made anything of an impression. There was occasion for surprise. The lovers were now in an all but land-locked stretch of water, shut in by tall rocks or high ground. Before the water of the inlet could reach the sea, it would have to pass sheer, sentinel rocks which seemed to guard jealously the bay's seclusion.

From several places very high up in the ground on either side of them, water gushed out in continuous currents, making music the while, presently to merge by divers channels into a stream which straggled down to the sea. The surface of this stream was covered with watercress: this was green where the water was fresh, a bright yellow as far as the salt tide had prevailed. Between where they stood and the distressed waters of the bay was a stretch of yellow sand. A little to their right was a dismantled, tumble-down cottage, which served to emphasise the romantic remoteness of the place.

"Isn't it—isn't it exquisite?" cried Mavis.

"It might have been made for us," Perigal remarked.

"It was. Say it was."

"Of course it was. Let me make my darling comfortable. She must be tired after her walk."

"She isn't a bit—but—"

"But what, sweetheart?"

"It's a long time since she had a kiss."

Perigal insisted upon making Mavis comfortable, with her back to a conveniently situated hummock of earth. He lit a cigarette, to pass it on to her before lighting one for himself.

Mavis lay back with the cigarette between her red lips, the while her eyes lazily took in the strange loveliness about her. The joy that burned so fiercely in her heart seemed to have been communicated to the world. Sea, cliff, waterfalls were all resplendent in the bountiful sunlight.

"It's not real: it's not real," she presently murmured.

"What isn't real?" he asked.

"This: you: love."

He reassured her with kisses.

"If it would only go on for ever!" she continued. "I'm so hungry for happiness."

"Why shouldn't it?" he laughed.

"Will it be just the same when we're married?"

"Eh! Of course."

"Sure?"

"So long as you don't change," he declared.

She laughed scornfully, while he sauntered down to the sea, cigarette in mouth. Mavis settled herself luxuriously to watch the adored one through lazy, half-closed eyelids. He had previously thrown away his straw hat; she saw how the wind wantoned in his light curls. All her love seemed to well up into her throat. She would have called to him, but her tongue refused speech; she was sick with love; she wondered if she would ever recover. As he idled back, her eyes were riveted on his face.

"What's up with little Mavis?" he asked carelessly, as he reached her side.

"I love you—I love you—I love you!" she whispered faintly.

He threw himself beside her to exclaim:

"You look done. Is it the heat?"

"Love—love for you," she murmured.

He kissed her neck, first lifting the soft hair behind her ear. Her head rested helplessly on his shoulder.

"I'll see about luncheon when little Mavis will let me," he remarked.

"Don't fidget: I want to talk."

"I'll listen, provided you only talk about love."

"That's what I wanted to talk about."

"Good!"

"No one's ever loved as we do?" she asked anxiously.

"No one."

"Or ever will?"

"Never."

"Sure?"

"Quite."

"I'm sure too. And nothing's ever—ever going to change it."

"Nothing. What could?"

"I love you. Oh, how I love you!" she whispered, as she nestled closer to him.

"Don't you believe I love you?" he asked hoarsely.

"Prove it."

"How?"

"By kissing my eyes."

As they sat, her arms stole about him; she wished that they were stronger, so that she could press him closer to her heart. Presently, he unpacked the luncheon basket, spread the cloth, and insisted on making all the preparations for their midday meal. She watched him cut up the cold chicken, uncork the claret, mix the salad—this last an elaborate process.

"It's delicious," she remarked, when she tasted his concoction.

"That's all I'm good for, Tommy rotten things of no real use to anyone."

"But it is of use. It's added to the enjoyment of my lunch."

"But there's no money in it: that's what I should have said."

He filled her glass and his with claret. Before either of them drank, they touched each other's glasses.

"Suggest a toast!" said Mavis.

"Love," replied Perigal.

"Our love," corrected Mavis, as she gave him a glance rich with meaning.

"Our love, then: the most beautiful thing in the world."

"Which, unlike everything else, never dies," she declared.

They drank. Mavis presently put down her knife and fork, to take Perigal's and feed him with tid-bits from her or his plate. She would not allow him to eat of anything without her sanction; she stuffed him as the dictates of her fancy suggested. Then she mixed great black berries with the Cornish cream. When they had eaten their fill, she lit a cigarette, while her lover ate cheese. When he had finished, he sat quite close to her as he smoked. Mavis abandoned herself to the enjoyment of her cigarette; supported by her lover's arm, she looked lazily at the wild beauty spread so bountifully about her. The sun, the sea, the sky, the cliff, the day all seemed an appropriate setting to the love which warmed her body. The man at her side possessed her thoughts to the exclusion of all else; she threw away her half-smoked cigarette to look at him with soft, tremulous eyes. Suddenly, she put an arm about his neck and bent his face back, which accomplished, she leant over him to kiss his hair, eyes, neck, and mouth.

"I love you! I love you! I love you!" she murmured.

"You're wonderful, little Mavis—wonderful."

Her kisses intoxicated him. He closed his eyes and slept softly. She pulled him towards her, so that his head was pillowed on her heart; then, feeling blissfully, ecstatically happy, she closed her eyes and turned her head so that the sunlight beat full on her face. She lost all sense of surroundings and must have slept for quite two hours. When she awoke, the sun was low in the heavens. She shivered slightly with cold, and was delighted to see the kettle boiling for tea on a spirit-lamp, which Perigal had lit in the shelter of the luncheon basket.

"How thoughtful of my darling!" she remarked.

"It's just boiling. I won't keep you a moment longer than I can help."

She sipped her tea, to feel greatly refreshed with her sleep. They ate heartily at this meal. They were both so radiantly happy that they laughed whenever there was either the scantiest opportunity or none at all. The most trivial circumstance delighted them; sea and sky seemed to reflect their boundless happiness. The sea had, by now, crept quite close to them: they amused themselves by watching the myriads of sand-flies which were disturbed by every advancing wave.

"We must soon be thinking of jacking up," said Perigal.

"Surely not yet, dearest."

"But it's past six."

"Don't let us go a moment sooner than is necessary," she pleaded. "It's all been too wonderful."

As the September sun had sunk behind the cliffs, they no longer felt his warmth. When Perigal had packed the luncheon basket, they walked about hand in hand, exploring the inmost recesses of their romantic retreat. It was only when it was quite dusk that they regretfully made a start for home.

"Go on a moment. I must take a last look of where I have been so happy," said Mavis.

"Alone?"

"If you don't mind. I want to see what it's like without you. I want to carry it in my mind all my life."

It was not long before Mavis rejoined her lover. When she had looked at the spot where she had enjoyed a day of unalloyed rapture, it appeared strangely desolate in the gathering gloom of night.

"Serve you right for wishing to be without me," he laughed, when she told him how the place had presented itself to her.

"You're quite right. It does," she assented.

They had some difficulty in finding foothold on the covered way, but Perigal, by lighting matches, did much to dissipate the gloom.

"Isn't it too bad of me?" asked Mavis suddenly, "I've forgotten all about dear Jill."

"But you were talking about her a lot yesterday."

"I mean to-day. She'd never forgive me if she knew."

"You must explain how happy you've been when you see her."

When they got out by the churchyard, they found that the night was spread with innumerable stars. She nestled close to his side as they walked in the direction of Polperro. Now and again, a thick growth of hedge flowers would fill their pathway with scent, when Mavis would stop to drink her fill of the fragrance.

"Isn't it delicious?" she asked.

"It knew you were coming and has done its best to greet you."

"It's all too wonderful," she murmured.

"Like your good-night kisses," he whispered.

A love tremor possessed her body.

"Say I love you," she said at another of their frequent halts.

"I love you! I love you! I love you!"

"I love music. But there's no music like that."

He placed his arm caressingly about her soft, warm body.

"Don't!" she pleaded.

"Don't!" he queried in surprise.

"It makes me love you so."

She spoke truly: from her lips to her pretty toes her body was burning with love. Her ecstasy was such that one moment she felt as if she could wing a flight into the heavens; at another, she was faint with love-sickness, when she clung tremulously to her lover for support.

Above, the stars shone out with a yet greater brilliance and in immense profusion. Now and again, a shooting star would dart swiftly down to go out suddenly. The multitude of many coloured stars dazzled her brain. It seemed to her love-intoxicated imagination as if night embraced the earth, even as Perigal held her body to his, and that the stars were an illumination and were twinkling so happily in honour of the double union. For all the splendid egotism born of human passion, the immense intercourse of night and earth seemed to reduce her to insignificance. She crept closer to Perigal's side, as if he could give her the protection she needed. He too, perhaps, was touched with the same lowliness, and the same hunger for the support of loving sympathy. His hand sought hers; and with a great wonder, a great love and a great humility in their hearts, they walked home.



CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE CURSE OF EVE

A little one was journeying to Mavis. A great fear, not unmixed with a radiant wonder, filled her being. It was now three months since her joyous stay with Perigal at Polperro. At the expiration of an all-too-brief fortnight, she had gone back, dazed, intoxicated with passion, to her humdrum work at the Melkbridge boot factory; while Perigal, provided by his father with the sinews of war, had departed for Wales, there to lay siege to elusive fortune. During this time, Mavis had seen him once or twice, when he had paid hurried visits to Melkbridge, and had heard from him often. Although his letters made copious reference to the never-to-be-forgotten joys they had experienced at Polperro, she scanned them anxiously, and in vain, for any reference to his marrying her now, or later. The omission caused her many painful hours; she realised more and more that, after the all-important part she had suffered him to play in her life, it would not be meet for her to permit any other man to be on terms other than friendship with her. It was brought home to her, and with no uncertain voice, how, in surrendering herself to her lover, she was no longer his adored Mavis, but nothing more nor less than his "thing," who was wholly, completely in his power, to make or mar as he pleased.

During these three months, she had seen or heard nothing of Windebank, so concluded that he was away.

* * * * *

She was much perturbed with wondering what she should do with the sumptuous dressing-case he had given her for a wedding present.

Directly there was no longer room for doubt that her union with Perigal would, in the fulness of time, bear fruit, she wrote telling him her news, and begging him to see her with as little delay as possible. In reply, she received a telegram, curtly telling her to be outside Dippenham station on Saturday afternoon at four.

This was on a Wednesday. Mavis's anxiety to hear from Perigal was such that her troubled blood set up a raging abscess in the root of a tooth that was scarcely sound. The least movement increased her torments; but what troubled her even more than the pain, was that, when the latter began to subside, one of her cheeks commenced to swell. She was anxious to look her very best before her lover: her lopsided face gave her a serio-comic expression. The swelling had diminished a little before she set out on the bleak December afternoon to meet her lover. Before she went, she looked long and anxiously in the glass. Apart from the disfigurement caused by the swelling, she saw (yet strove to conceal from herself) that her condition was already interfering with her fresh, young comeliness: her eyes were drawn; her features wore a tense, tired expression. As she looked out of the carriage window on her train journey to Dippenham, the gloom inspired by the darkening shadows of the day, the dreariness of the bleak landscape, chilled her to the heart. She comforted herself by reflecting with what eager cheerfulness Perigal would greet her; how delighted he would be at receiving from her lips further confirmation of her news; how loyally he would fulfil his many promises by making the earliest arrangements for their marriage. Arrived at her destination, she learned she would have to wait twelve minutes till the train arrived that would bring her lover from Wales. She did not stay in the comparative comfort of the waiting-room, but, despite the pain that movement still gave her, preferred to wander in the streets of the dull, quaint town till his train was due. A thousand doubts assailed her mind: perhaps he would not come, or would be angry with her, or would meet with an accident upon the way. Her mind travelled quickly, and her body felt the need of keeping pace with the rapidity of her thoughts. She walked with sharp, nervous steps down the road leading from the station, to be pulled up by the insistent pain in her head. She returned so carefully that Perigal's train was steaming into the station as she reached the booking office. She walked over the bridge to get to his platform, to be stopped for a few moments by the rush, roar, and violence of a West of England express, passing immediately under where she stood. The disturbance of the passing train stunned and then jarred her overwrought nerves, causing the pain in her face to get suddenly worse. As she met those who had got out of the train Perigal would come by, she wondered if he would so much as notice the disfigurement of her face. For her part, if he came to her one-armed and blind, it would make no difference to her; indeed, she would love him the more. Perigal stepped from the door of a first class compartment, seemingly having been aroused from sleep by a porter; he carried a bag.

Mavis noticed, with a great concern, how careworn he was looking—a great concern, because, directly she set eyes on him, she realised the immensity of her love for him. At that moment she loved him more than she had ever done before; he was not only her lover, to whom she had surrendered herself body and soul, but also the father of her unborn little one. Faintness threatened her; she clung to the handle of a weighing machine for support.

"More trouble!" he remarked, as he reached her.

She looked at him with frightened eyes, finding it hard to believe the evidence of her ears.

"W-what?" she faltered.

"Heavens!"

"What's the matter, dear?"

"What have you done to your face?"

"I—I hoped you wouldn't notice. I've had an abscess."

"Notice it! Haven't you looked in the glass?"

Mavis bit her lip.

"I shouldn't have thought you could look so—look like that," he continued.

"What trouble did you mean?" she found words to ask.

"This. Why you sent for me."

She felt as if he had stabbed her. She stopped, overwhelmed by the blow that the man she loved so whole-heartedly had struck her.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Nothing—only—"

"Only what?"

"You don't seem at all glad to see me."

She spoke as if pained at and resentful of his coldness. He looked at her, to watch the suffering in her eyes crystallise into a defiant hardness.

"I am, no end. But I'm tired and cold. Wait till we've had something to eat," he said kindly.

Mavis melted. Her love for him was such that she found it no easy matter being angry with him.

"How selfish of me! I ought to have known," she remarked. "Let someone take your bag."

"I don't know where I'm going to stop. I'll leave it at the station for the present."

"Aren't you going home?" she asked in some surprise.

"We'll talk over everything when I've got warm."

She waited while he left his bag in the cloak-room. When he joined her, they walked along the street leading from the station.

"I could have seen what's up with you without being told," he remarked ungenially.

"It won't be for so very long. I shall look all right again some day," she declared, with a sad little laugh.

"That's the worst of women," he went on. "Just when you think everything's all right, this goes and happens."

His words fired her blood.

"I should have thought you would have been very proud," she cried.

"Eh!"

"However foolish I've been, I'm not the ordinary sort of woman. Where I've been wrong is in being too kind to you."

She paused for breath. She was also a little surprised at her bold words; she was so completely at the man's mercy.

"I do appreciate it. I'd be a fool if I didn't. But it's this development that's so inconvenient."

"Inconvenient! Inconvenient you call it—!"

"This will do us," he interrupted, pausing at the doorway of the "King's Arms Hotel."

"I'm not sure I'll come in."

"Please yourself. But it's as well to have a talk, so that we can see exactly where we stand."

His words voiced the present desire of her heart. She was burning to put an end to her suspense, to find out exactly where she stood. The comparative comfort of the interior of the hotel thawed his coldness.

"Rather a difficult little Mavis," he smiled as they ascended the stairs.

"I'm all right till I'm roused. Then I feel capable of anything."

"The sort of girl I admire," he admitted.

He engaged a sitting-room and bedroom for the night. Mavis did not trouble to consider what relation to Perigal the hotel people believed her to be. Her one concern was to discover his intentions with regard to the complication which had arisen in her life. She ordered tea. While it was being got ready, she sat by the newly-lit fire, a prey to gloomy thoughts. The pain in her face had, in a measure, abated. She was alone, Perigal having gone to the bedroom to wash after his journey. She contrasted her present misery with the joyousness that had possessed her when last she had been under the same roof as her lover. Tears welled into her eyes, but she held them back, fearing they would further contribute to the undoing of her looks.

When the tea was brought, she made the waiter wheel the table to the fire; she also took off her cloak and hat and smoothed her hair in the glass. She put the toast by the fire in order to keep it warm. She wanted everything to be comfortable and home-like for her lover. She then poked the fire into a blaze and moved a cumbrous arm chair to a corner of the tea table. When Perigal came in, he was smoking a cigarette.

"Trying to work up a domestic atmosphere," he laughed, with a faint suggestion of a sneer in his hilarity.

Mavis bit her lip.

"It was the obvious thing to do. Don't be obvious, little Mavis. It jars."

"Won't you have some tea?" she faltered.

"No, thanks. I've ordered something a jolly sight better than tea," he said, warming his hands at the fire.

Mavis was too stunned to make any comment. She found it hard to believe that the ardent lover of Polperro and the man who was so indifferent to her extremity, were one and the same. She felt as if her heart had been hammered with remorseless blows. They waited in silence till a waiter brought in a bottle of whisky, six bottles of soda water, glasses, and a box of cigarettes.

"Have some whisky?" asked Perigal of Mavis.

"I prefer tea!"

"Have some in that?"

"No, thank you."

While Mavis sipped her tea, she watched him from the corner of her eyes mix himself a stiff glass of whisky and soda. She would have given many years of her life to have loved him a little less than she did; she dimly realised that his indifference only fanned the raging fires of her passion.

"I feel better now," he said presently.

"I'm glad. I must be going."

"Eh!"

Mavis got up and went to get her hat.

"I wish you to stay for dinner."

"I'm sorry. But I must get back," she said, as she pinned on her hat.

"I wish you to stay," he declared, as he caught her insistently by the arm.

The touch of his flesh moved her to the marrow. She sat helplessly. He appeared to enjoy her abject surrender.

"Now I'll have some tea, little Mavis," he said.

She poured him out a cup, while he got the toast from the fender to press some on her. He began to recover his spirits; he talked, laughed, and rallied her on her depression. She was not insensible to his change of mood.

When the tea was taken away, he pressed a cigarette on her against her will.

"You always get your own way," she murmured, as he lit it for her.

"Now we'll have a cosy little chat," he said, as he wheeled her chair to the fire. He brought his chair quite near to hers.

Mavis did not suffer quite so much.

"Now about this trouble," he continued. "Tell me all about it."

She restated the subject of her last letter in as few words as possible. When she had finished, he asked her a number of questions which betrayed a familiar knowledge of the physiology of her extremity. She wondered where he could have gained his information, not without many jealous pangs at this suggestion of his having been equally intimate with others of her sex.

"Hang it all! It's not nearly so bad as it might be," he said presently.

"What do you mean?"

"Why that, if every woman who got into the same scrape did nothing to help herself, the world would be over-populated in five minutes."

Mavis sat bolt upright. Her hands grasped the arms of her chair; her eyes stared straight before her. There arose to her quick fancy the recollection of certain confidences of Miss Allen, which had hinted at hideous malpractices of the underworld of vice, affecting women in a similar condition to hers.

"Well?" said Perigal.

The sound of his voice recalled her to the present.

Mavis rose, placed a hand on each arm of Perigal's chair, and leant over so as to look him full in the eyes, as she said icily:

"Do you know what you are saying?"

"Eh! Dear little Mavis. You take everything so seriously," he remarked, as he kissed her lightly on the cheek.

She sat back in her chair, uneasy, troubled: vague, unwholesome, sordid shadows seemed to gather about her.

"Ever gone in for sea-fishing?" Perigal asked, after some minutes of silence.

"No."

"I'm awfully keen. I'm on it all day when the wind isn't east."

This enthusiasm for sea-fishing struck a further chill to Mavis's forlorn heart. She could not help thinking that, if he had been moved by a loving concern for her welfare, he would have devoted his days to the making of a competence on which they could live.

"Now about this trouble," said Perigal, at which Mavis listened with all her ears. He went on: "I know, of course, the proper thing, the right thing to do is to marry you at once." Here he paused.

Mavis waited in suspense for him to go on; it seemed an epoch of time till he added:

"But what are we going to live upon?"

She kept on repeating his words to herself. She felt as if she were drowning in utter darkness.

"I can tell you at once that there's precious little money in bricks. I'm fighting against big odds, and if I were worrying about you—if you had enough to live upon and all that—I couldn't give proper attention to business."

"It would be heaven for me," she remarked.

"So you say now. All I ask you to do is to trust implicitly in me and wait."

"How long?" she gasped.

"I can't say for certain. It all depends."

"On what?"

"Circumstances."

She did not speak for some moments, the while she repressed an impulse to throw herself at his feet, and implore him to reconsider his indefinite promise.

"Will you pour me out a little whisky?" she said presently.

"What about your face? It might make it throb."

"I'll chance that."

"Aren't you well, little Mavis?" he asked kindly.

"Not very. It must be the heat of the room."

She gulped down the spirit, to feel the better for it. It seemed to give her heart to face her misfortunes. She could say no more just then, as a man came into the room to lay the table.

Whilst this operation was in progress, she thought of the unlooked-for situation in which she found herself. It was not so very long since Perigal was the suppliant, she the giver; now, the parts were reversed, except that, whereas she had given without stint, he withheld that which every wholesome instinct of his being should urge him to bestow without delay.

She wondered at the reason of the change, till the words he had spoken on the day of their jaunt to Broughton occurred to her:

"No sooner was one want satisfied than another arose to take its place. It's a law of nature that ensures the survival of the fittest, by making men always struggle to win the desire of the moment."

She had been Perigal's desire, but, once won, another had taken its place, which, so far as she could see, was sea-fishing. She smiled grimly at the alteration in his taste. Then, an idea illuminated, possessed her mind.

"Why not make myself desirable so that he will be eager to win me again," she thought.

So Mavis, despite the pain in her face, which owing to the spirit she had drunk was beginning to trouble her again, set out on the most dismal of all feminine quests—that of endeavouring to make a worldly, selfish man pay the price of his liberty, and endure poverty for that which he had already enjoyed to the full. With a supreme effort of will, she subdued her inclination to unrestrained despair; with complete disregard of the acute pain in her head, she became gay, light-hearted, irresponsible, joyous. There was an undercurrent of suffering in her simulated mirth, but Perigal did not notice it; he was taken by surprise at the sudden change in her mood. He responded to her supposititious merriment; he laughed and joked as irrepressibly as did Mavis.

"Quite like the old Polperro days," he replied to one of Mavis' sallies.

His remark reduced her to momentary thoughtfulness. The staple dish of the extemporised meal was a pheasant. Perigal, despite her protests, was heaping up her plate a second time, when he said:

"Do you know what I was dreading the whole way up?"

"That you'd got into the right train!"

"Scarcely that. I was funky you'd do the obvious sentimental thing, and wear the old Polperro dress."

"As if I would!"

"Anyway, you haven't. Besides, it's much too cold."

He ordered champagne. Further to play the part of Circe to his Ulysses, she drank a little of this, careless of the pain it might inflict. Although she was worn down by her anxieties and the pain of her abscess, it gave her an immense thrill of pleasure to notice how soon she recovered her old ascendancy over him. Now, his admiring eyes never left her face. Once, when he got up to hand her something, he went out of his way to come behind her to kiss her neck.

"Little Mavis is a fascinating little devil," he remarked, as he resumed his seat.

"That's what you thought when I met you at the station."

"I was tired and worried, and worry destroys love quicker than anything. Now—"

"Now!"

"You've gone the shortest way to 'buck' me up."

Thus encouraged, Mavis made further efforts to captivate Perigal, and persuade him to fulfill the desire of her heart. Now, he was constantly about her on any and every excuse, when he would either kiss her or caress her hair. After dinner, they sat by the fire, where they drank coffee and smoked cigarettes. Presently, Perigal slipped on the ground beside her, where he leaned his head against her knee, while he fondled one of her feet. Her fingers wandered in his hair.

"Like old times, sweetheart!" he said,

"Is it?" she laughed.

"It is to me, little Mavis. I love you! I love you! I love you!"

Mavis's heart leapt. Life held promise of happiness after all.

"What have you arranged about tonight?" he asked, after a few moments' silence.

"Nothing unusual. Why?"

"Must you go back?"

"Why?" she asked, wondering what he was driving at.

"I thought you might stay here."

"Stay here!" she gasped.

"With me—as you did in Polperro." Then, as she did not speak: "There's no reason why you shouldn't!"

A great horror possessed Mavis. This, then, was all she had laboured for; all he thought of her. She had believed that he would have offered immediate marriage. His suggestion helped her to realise the hopelessness of her situation; how, in the eternal contest between the sexes, she had not only laid all her cards upon the table, but had permitted him to win every trick. She fell from the summit of her blissful anticipations into a slough of despair. She had little or no hope of his ever making her the only possible reparation. Ruin, disgrace, stared her in the face. And after all the fine hopes with which she had embarked on life! Her pride revolted at this promise of hapless degradation. Anything rather than that. There was but one way to avoid such a fate, not only for her, but for the new life within her. The roar and rush of the express, when she had crossed the footbridge at the station, sounded hopefully in her ears.

"There's no reason why you shouldn't!" he repeated.

"Indeed?" she said mechanically.

"Is there? After all that's happened, what difference can it make?" he persisted, as he reached for a cigarette.

"What difference can it make?" she repeated dully.

"Good! Dear little Mavis! Have another cigarette."

Unseen by him, she had caught up coat, gloves, and hat, and moved towards the door. Here she had paused, finding it hard to leave him whom she loved unreservedly for other women to caress and care for.

The words, "What difference can it make?" decided her. They spurred her along the short, quick road which was to end in peaceful oblivion. She opened the door noiselessly, and slipped down the stairs and out of the front door with out being seen by any of the hotel people. Once in the street, where a drizzle was falling, she turned to the right in the direction of the station. It seemed a long way. She would have liked to have stepped from the room, in which she had been with Perigal, on to the rails before the passing express. She hurried on. Although it was Saturday night, there were few people about, the bad weather keeping many indoors who would otherwise be out. She was within a few paces of the booking office when she felt a hand on her arm.

"Don't stop me! Let me go!" she cried.

"Where to?" asked Perigal's voice.

She pressed forward.

"Don't be a little fool. Are you mad? Stop!"

He forced her to a standstill.

"Now come back," he said.

"No. Let me go."

"Are you so mad as to do anything foolish?"

By way of reply, she made a vain effort to free herself. He tried to reason with her, but nothing he urged could change her resolution. Her face was expressionless; her eyes dull; her mind appeared to be obsessed by a determination to take her life. He changed his tactics.

"Very well, then," he said, "come along."

She looked at him, surprised, as she started off.

"Where you go, I go; whatever you do, I do."

She paused to say:

"If you'd let me have my own way, I should be now out of my misery."

"You only think of yourself," he cried. "You don't mind what would happen to me if you—if you—!"

"A lot you'd care!" she interrupted.

"Don't talk rot. It's coming down worse than ever. Come back to the hotel."

"Never that," she said, compressing her lip.

"You'll catch your death here."

"A good thing too. I can't go on living. If I do, I shall go mad," she cried, pressing her hands to her head.

Passers-by were beginning to notice them.

Without success, Perigal urged her to walk.

She became hysterically excited and upbraided him in no uncertain voice. She seemed to be working herself into a paroxysm of frenzy. To calm her, perhaps because he was moved by her extremity, he overwhelmed her with endearments, the while he kissed her hands, her arms, her face, when no one was by.

She was influenced by his caresses, for she, presently, permitted herself to walk with him down the street, where they turned into the railed-in walk which crossed the churchyard.

He redoubled his efforts to induce in her a more normal state of mind.

"Don't you love me, little Mavis?" he asked. "If you did, you wouldn't distress me so."

"Love you!" she laughed scornfully.

"Then why can't you listen and believe what I say?"

He said more to the same effect, urging, begging, praying her to trust him to marry her, when he could see his way clearly.

Perhaps because the mind, when confronted with danger, fights for existence as lustily as does the body, Mavis, against her convictions, strove with some success to believe the honeyed assurances which dropped so glibly from her lover's tongue. His eloquence bore down her already enfeebled resolution.

"Go on; go on; go on!" she cried. "It's all lies, no doubt; but it's sweet to listen to all the same."

He looked at her in surprise.

"Your love-words, I mean. They're all I've got to live for now. What you can't find heart to say, invent. You've no idea what good it does me."

"Mavis!" he cried reproachfully.

"It seems to give me life," she declared, to add after a few moments of silence: "Situated as I am, they're like drops of water to a man dying of thirst."

"But you're not going to die: you're going to live and be happy with me!"

She looked at him questioningly, putting her soul into her eyes.

"But you must trust me," he continued.

"Haven't I already?" she asked.

He took no notice of her remark, but gave utterance to a platitude.

"There's no love without trust," he said.

"Say that again."

"There's no love without trust," he repeated. "What are you thinking of?" he asked, as she did not speak.

A light kindled in her eyes; her face was aglow with emotion; her bosom heaved convulsively.

"You ask me to trust you?" she said.

He nodded.

"Very well, then: I love you; I will."

"Mavis!" he cried.

"More, I'll prove it. You asked me to stay here with you. I refused. I love you—I trust you. Do with me as you will."

"Mavis!"

"I distrusted you. I did wrong, I atone."



CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

SNARES

The Sunday week after Mavis' meeting with Perigal at Dippenham, she left the train at Paddington a few minutes after six in the evening. She got a porter to wheel her luggage to the cloak-room, reserving a small handbag for her use, which contained her savings.

She then made for the refreshment room, where she ordered and sipped a cup of tea. She would have liked more, but as she had so much to do with her money, she did not think she dare afford the threepence which she would have to pay for another cup. As she rested for some moments in the comparative seclusion of the refreshment room, she derived satisfaction from the fact that she had got away from Melkbridge before any suspicions had arisen of her condition. Upon her return to her lodging after seeing Perigal, she had, at his instigation, written to Mr Devitt, telling him that she would be leaving his employment in a week's time. She gave no reason for throwing up her work, beyond saying that the state of her health necessitated a change of occupation. She had also given notice to Mrs Farthing, and had spent her spare time in packing up and saying goodbye to her few friends. Her chief difficulty was with her dear Jill, as she knew how many London landladies objected to having dogs in lodgings. At last, she arranged for Mrs Trivett to look after her pet till such time as she could be sent for. Mavis had offered the farmer's wife a shilling or two a week for Jill's keep, but her kind friend would not hear of any such arrangement being made. Then had followed Mavis' goodbye to her dog, a parting which had greatly distressed her. Jill had seemed to divine that something was afoot, for her eyes showed a deep, pleading look when Mavis had clasped her in her arms and covered her black face with kisses. She thought of her now as she sat in the waiting room; tears welled to her eyes. With a sigh she realised that she must set about looking for a lodging. She left the waiting room in order to renew the old familiar quest. Mavis walked into the depressing ugliness of Eastbourne Terrace, at the most dismal hour of that most dismal of all days, the London Sunday in winter. The street lamps seemed to call attention to the rawness of the evening air. The roads, save for a few hurrying, recently released servants, were deserted; every house was lit up—all factors that oppressed Mavis with a sense of unspeakable loneliness. She became overwhelmed with self-consciousness; she believed that every passer-by, who glanced at her, could read her condition in her face; she feared that her secret was known to a curious, resentful world. Mavis felt heartsick, till, with something of an effort, she remembered that this, and all she had to endure in the comparatively near future, should be and were sacrifices upon the shrine of the loved one. She had walked some distance along Praed Street, and was now in the wilderness of pretentious, stucco-faced mansions, which lie between Paddington and the north side of Hyde Park. She knew it was useless to seek for lodgings here, so pressed on, hoping to arrive at a humbler neighbourhood, where she would be more likely to get what she wanted. As she walked, the front doors of the big houses would now and again open, when she was much surprised at the vulgar appearance of many of those who came out. It seemed to her as if the district in which she found herself was largely tenanted by well-to-do, but self-made people. After walking for many minutes, she reached the Bayswater Road, which just now was all but deserted. The bare trees on the further side of the road accentuated the desolation of the thoroughfare. She turned to the left and pressed on, fighting valiantly against the persistent spirit of loneliness which seemed to dog her footsteps. Men and girls hurried by to keep appointments with friends or lovers. Buses jogged past her, loaded with people who all had somewhere to go, and probably someone who looked for their coming. She was friendless and alone. Ever since her interview with Perigal she had realised how everything she valued in life, if not life itself, depended on her implicit faith in him. He had told her that there could be no love without trust; she had believed in this assertion as if it had been another revelation, and it had enabled her to go through the past week with hardly a pang of regret (always excepting her parting from Jill) at breaking with all the associations that had grown about her life during her happy stay at Melkbridge.

Now doubts assailed her mind. She knew that if she surrendered to them it meant giving way to despair; she thought of any and all of Perigal's words which she could honestly construe into a resolve on his part to marry her before her child was born. As she thus struggled against her unquiet thoughts, two men (at intervals of a few minutes) followed and attempted to speak to her. Their unwelcome attentions increased her uneasiness of mind; they seemed to tell her of the dubious ways by which men sought to entangle in their toils those of her own sex who were pleasing to the eye: just now, she lumped all men together, and would not admit that there was any difference between them. Arrived in the neighbourhood of the Marble Arch, she was sure of her ground. She was reminded of her wanderings of evenings from "Dawes'," when, if not exploring Soho, she had often walked in this direction. Memories of those long-forgotten days, which now seemed so remote, assailed her at every step. Then she had believed herself to be unhappy. Now she would have given many years of her life to be able to change her present condition (including her trust in Perigal) to be as she was before she had met him. Directly she crossed Edgware Road, the pavement became more crowded. Shop-girls (the type of young woman she knew well) and hobbledehoyish youths, the latter clad in "reach-me-down" frockcoat suits, high collars, and small, ready-made bow ties, thronged about her. She could not help contrasting the anaemic faces, the narrow, stooping shoulders of these youths with the solidly-built, ruddy-cheeked men whom she had seen in Wiltshire. She was rapidly losing her old powers of physical endurance; she felt exhausted, and turned into the small Italian restaurant on the left, which she had sometimes gone to when at "Dawes'."

"It hasn't changed one bit," she thought, as she entered and walked to the inner room. There was the same bit of painted canvas at the further end of the place, depicting nothing in particular. There were the same shy, self-conscious, whispering couples seated at the marble-topped tables, who, after critically looking over the soiled bill of fare, would invariably order coffee, roll and butter, or, if times were good, steak and fried potatoes. The same puffy Italian waiter stood by the counter, holding, as of old, coffee-pot in one hand and milk-pot in the other. Mavis always associated this man with the pots, which he never relinquished; she remembered wondering if he slept, still holding them in his grasp.

She ordered a veal cutlet and macaroni, for which the place was famous among the epicures of "Dawes'." While it was being prepared, she brought notepaper, envelope, and pencil from her bag, to write a short note to Perigal.

The morning post had brought her a letter from him, which had enclosed notes to the value of ten pounds towards the expenses of her enforced stay in London. Her reply told him that, as she had enough for present needs, she returned his money. She suggested that if he had no use for it, he could put it towards the expenses of providing their home; that she had arrived safely in London; that she was about to look for a lodging. She ended with passionately affectionate wishes for his wellbeing. When she had put the money and letter into the envelope, and this into her bag, her meal was banged down before her. She ordered a bottle of stout, for had she not to nourish another life beside her own? After Mavis had finished, she did not feel in the least disposed to go out. She sat back on the dingy plush seat, and enjoyed the sensation of the food doing her good. It was seven o'clock when she paid the waiter and joined the crowd now sauntering along Oxford Street. She walked towards Regent Circus, hoping to find a post-office, where she could get a stamp for Perigal's letter. She wondered if she should go to church, if only for a few minutes, but decided to keep away from a place of worship, feeling that her thoughts were too occupied with her troubles to give adequate attention to the service. A new, yet at the same time familiar dread, oppressed her. She seemed to get relief from hurrying along the crowded pavement. She longed to get settled for the night, but was still uncertain where to seek a lodging. She had some thought of taking the Tube, and looking about her in the direction of Hammersmith, but her one thought now was to get indoors with as little delay as possible. She remembered that there was a maze of private houses along the Tottenham Court Road, in many of which she had often noticed that there was displayed a card, announcing that apartments were to let. She took a 'bus to the Tottenham Court Road. Arrived there, she got out and walked along it, to turn, presently, to the right. Most of the houses, for all their substantial fronts, had an indefinable atmosphere of being down at heel, perhaps because many were almost in darkness. They looked like houses that were in no sense of the word homes. She selected one of the least forbidding and knocked at the door. After waiting some time, she heard footsteps scuffling along the passage. A blowsy, elderly, red-faced woman opened the door. She was clad in a greasy flannel dressing gown; unbrushed hair fell on her shoulders; naked, unclean toes protruded through holes in her stockings and slippers.

"Good evening, dear," said the woman. Mavis turned to go.

"Was you wanting rooms, my dear?"

"I was."

"I've the very thing you want. Don't run away."

Mavis hesitated.

"Don't judge of 'em by me. I ain't been quite myself, as you, being another lady, can quite understand, an' I overslep' myself a bit; but if you'll walk inside, you'll be glad you didn't go elsewhere."

Mavis was so tired, that she persuaded herself that the landlady's appearance might not be indicative (as it invariably is) of the character of the rooms.

"One moment. Oo sent yer?" asked the woman.

"No one. I saw—"

"Didn't Foxy?"

"No one did. I saw the card in the window."

"Please to walk upstairs."

Mavis followed the woman up unswept stairs to the first floor, where the landlady fumbled with a key in the lock of a door.

"S'pose you know Foxy?" she queried.

"No. Who is he?"

"'E goes about the West End and brings me lady lodgers."

"I'm from the country," remarked Mavis.

"You a dear little bird from far away? You've fallen on a pretty perch, my dear, an' you can thank Gawd you ain't got with some as I could mention."

By this time, they had got into the room, where the landlady lighted one jet of a dirty chandelier.

"There now!" cried the landlady triumphantly.

Mavis looked about her at the gilt-framed glass over the mantelpiece, the table, the five chairs (including one arm), the sofa and the chiffonnier, which was pretty well all the furniture that the room contained. The remains of a fire untidied the grate; the flimsiest curtains were hung before the windows. The landlady was quick to notice the look of disappointment on the girl's face.

"See the bedroom, my dear, before you settle."

This proved to be even less inviting than the sitting-room: hardly any of the furniture was perfect; a dirty piece of stuff was pinned across the window; dust lay heavy on toilet glass and mantel. Happily contrasted with this squalor was the big bed, which was invitingly comfortable and clean.

Mavis was very tired; she looked longingly at the bed, with its luxurious, lace-fringed pillows. The landlady marked her indecision.

"It's very cheap, miss."

"What do you call cheap?"

"Two guineas a week; light an' coals extry."

"Two guineas a week!"

"You've perfec' liberty to bring in who you like."

Mavis stared at her in astonishment.

"An' no questions asked, my dear."

Mavis wondered if the woman were in her right senses.

"I thought you'd jump at it," she went on. "I could see it when you saw the bed. The gentlemen like a nice clean bed."

Mavis understood; clutching her bag, she walked to the door.

"Not goin' to 'ave 'em?" screeched the landlady.

Mavis hurried on.

"Guinea a week and what extries you like. There!"

Mavis ran down the stairs.

"Won't they give you more than five shillings?" shouted the woman over the banisters as Mavis reached the door.

"I s'pose your beat is the Park," the woman shrieked, as Mavis ran down the steps.

Mavis ran a few yards, to stop short. She trembled from head to foot; tears scalded her eyes, which, with a great effort, she kept back. She was crushed with humiliation and shame. At once she thought of the loved one, and how deeply he would resent the horrible insult to which his tenderly loved little Mavis had been subjected. But there was no time for vain imaginings. With the landlady's foul insinuations ringing in her ears, she set about looking for a house where she might get what she wanted. The rain, that had been threatening all day, began to fall, but her umbrella was at Paddington. She was not very far from the Tottenham Court Road. Fearful of catching cold in her present condition, she hurried to this thoroughfare, where she thought she might get shelter. When she got there, she found that places of vantage were already occupied to their utmost capacity by umbrellaless folk like herself. She hurried along till she came to what, from the pseudoclassic appearance of the structure, seemed a place of dissenting worship. She ran up the steps to the lobby, where she found the shelter she required. A door leading to the chapel was open, which enabled her to overhear the conclusion of the sermon. As the preacher's words fell on her ears, she listened intently, and edged nearer to the door communicating with the chapel. His message seemed meant expressly for her. It told her that, despite anything anyone might presume to urge to the contrary, God was ever the loving Father of His children; that He rejoiced when they rejoiced, suffered when they sorrowed; however much the faint-hearted might be led to believe that the world was ruled by remorseless law, that much faith and a little patience would enable even the veriest sinner to see how the seemingly cruellest inflictions of Providence were for the sufferer's ultimate good, and, therefore, happiness.

Presently, when the rain stopped, Mavis came away feeling mentally refreshed. As is usual with those in trouble, she applied anything pertinent she read or heard about sorrow to herself. The fact of her intercourse with Perigal having been in the nature of deadly sin did not trouble her so much as might have been expected. She felt that God would understand, and believed that to know all was to forgive all. Also, try as she might, she could not see that her sin was of such a deadly nature as it is made out to be by the Church. It seemed that her surrender to her lover at Polperro had been the natural and inevitable consequence of her love for him, and that, if the one were condemned, so also should love be itself, inasmuch as it was plainly responsible for what had happened. Now, she was glad to learn, on the authority of the pulpit, that, however much she suffered from her present extremity, it would be for her ultimate happiness.

She started afresh to look for a lodging. She needed all the resolution she could muster. Repulsive-looking foreign women opened most of the doors at which she knocked, whilst surly-looking men hovered in the background.

Mavis wished she had started earlier for Hammersmith, to see what she could find there. At last she went into a chemist's shop which she saw open, to ask if she could be recommended to any rooms. A burly, blotchy-faced, bearded man stood behind the bottle-laden counter. Mavis stated her wants.

"Married?" asked the man.

"Y—yes—but I'm living by myself for the present."

"Of course. But your husband would visit you," remarked the man with a leer.

Mavis looked at him in surprise.

"Well, we'll call it your husband," suggested the chemist.

Mavis walked from the shop.

It seemed that everyone was in league to insult her. Her heart was heavy with grief. She could not help thinking how the presence of the loved one, a word of encouragement from him, would instantly dissipate her soreness of heart and growing physical exhaustion.

She gave up the idea of looking for rooms in this disreputable corner of London. Her only concern was to get lodging for the night, so that she could resume her quest on the morrow in a more likely part of the great city. She stopped a policeman and asked to be directed to a reasonable hotel. The man told her that she would find what she wanted in the Euston Road. She walked along this depressing and sordid thoroughfare, where what were once front gardens before comfortable houses were now waste spaces, given over to the display of dilapidated signboards of strange and unfamiliar trades. Here she dragged herself up the steps of the hotels that abound in this road, to learn at each one she applied at that they were full for the night. If she had not been so tired, she would have wondered if they were speaking the truth, or if they divined her condition and did not consider her to be a respectable applicant. At the last at which she called, she was asked to write her name in the hotel book. She commenced to write Mavis Keeves, but remembered that she had decided to call herself Mrs Kenrick while in London. She crossed out what she had written, to substitute the name she had elected to bear. Whether or not this correction made the hotel people suspicious, she was soon informed that she could not be accommodated. Mavis, heartsore and weary, went out into the night. A different class of person to the one that she had met earlier in the evening began to infest the streets. Bold-eyed women, dressed in cheap finery, appeared here and there, either singly or in pairs. The vague, yet familiar fear, which she had experienced when she began to look for rooms, again took possession of her with gradually increasing force. She was soon on such familiar terms with this obsession, that she remembered when and how it had first originated in her mind. It was after her adventure with Mrs Hamilton and her chance meeting with the never-to-be-forgotten Mrs Ewer, when a horrid fear of London had possessed her soul. Now she saw, even plainer than before, the deep pitfalls and foul morasses which ever menace the feet of unprotected girls in London who have to earn their daily bread. If it were an effort for her to snatch a living from the great industrial machine when she was last in London, now, in her condition, it was practically hopeless to look for work. Mind and body were paralysed by a great fear. To add to her discomfiture, the rain again began to fall. Scarcely knowing what she was doing, she walked up a pathway, running parallel with the road, which flanked a row of forlorn-looking houses. Here she felt so faint that she was compelled to cling to the railings to save herself from falling. Two children passed, one of whom carried a jug, who stopped to stare at her.

"Please!" called Mavis weakly, at which one of the children approached her.

"Can you tell me where I can get a room?"

"I'll ask fader," replied the child, who spoke with a German accent.

Mavis remembered little beyond waiting an eternity of suspense, and then of being assisted into a house, up a flight of stairs to a room where she sank on the nearest thing handy. She opened her frock to clutch, as if for protection, the ring Perigal had given her, and which she always wore suspended on her heart. Then she was overtaken by unconsciousness.

When she awoke, she rubbed her eyes again and again, whilst a horrible pungent smell affected her nostrils. She could scarcely believe that she had got to where she found herself. She saw by the morning light, which was feebly straggling into the room, that she was lying, fully dressed, on an untidy, dirty bed. The room looked so abjectly wretched that she sprang from her resting-place and attempted to draw the curtains, in order to take complete stock of her surroundings—attempted, because the dark, cheap cretonne, of which they were made, refused to move, their tops being nailed to the upper woodwork of the window by tintacks. She tried the second window (the room boasted two), with the same result, owing to a like cause. For her safety's sake, she was relieved to find that the room overlooked the Euston Road.

After turning back the chintz curtains, she looked about her. She had never been in such a truly awful-looking room before. She had never imagined that any four walls could enclose such hopeless, dejected desolation as she saw. A round table stood in the middle of the carpetless room. There were several other tables about this one. Upon one stood a basin, in which was water that had some time ago been used for the ablutionary purposes of someone sadly in need of a wash. Thick rims of dirt encrusted the sides of the basin where the water had not reached. The looking glass was pimpled with droppings from lighted candles. Upon a further table was a tumbler filthy to look upon. The bed was painted iron; it wanted a leg, and to supply the deficiency a grocer's box had been thrust underneath. The blankets of the bed (which contained two pillows) were as grubby as the sheets. The pillows beside the one on which she had slept bore the impress of somebody's head. Over everything, walls, furniture, ceiling, and floor, lay a thick deposit of dust and grime. Misspelt lewd words were fingered on the dirt of the window-panes. The horror of the room seemed to grip Mavis by the throat. She coughed, to sicken at a foul feeling in her mouth, which seemed to be gritty from the unclean air of the room. This atmosphere was not only as if the windows had not been opened for years; it was as if it had been inhaled over and over again by alcohol-breathing lungs; also, the horrid memories of sordid lusts, of unnumbered bestial acts, seemed to lie heavy on the polluted fuggy air. To get away from the all-pervading stench, Mavis hurried to the door. This, she could not help noticing, hung loosely on its hinges; also, that about the doorplate were innumerable lock marks and screw holes, as if the door had been furnished with fastenings, times out of number, till the rotten wood refused to support any more. Mavis pulled open the door and walked on to a carpetless landing and stairs. She stamped with her foot, but this not attracting any attention, she called aloud. Her voice echoed as if she were in a vault. After some time, she heard a door unbolted, and a rough, unkempt man came up the stairs.

"How much?" asked Mavis.

"Five shillin'."

"For that?"

"Five shillin'," repeated the man doggedly.

Mavis did not further argue the point, as, when she opened her mouth, the stench of the room she had quitted seemed to fasten on her throat.

She paid the money and was about to fly down the stairs. Then she remembered her precious bag. Again holding her nose, she hurried back into the room where she had unwittingly passed the night. The bag was nowhere to be seen, although its outline was to be easily traced in the dust on the table where she had put it.

"My bag! my bag!" she cried.

"Vot bag?"

"The one I had last night. Here's its mark upon the table."

"I know nodinks about it," replied the man, as he disappeared down the stairs.



CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

A NEW ACQUAINTANCE

Mavis' heart seemed to stop. She knew the bag contained her trinkets, her reserve capital of twenty-three pounds, Perigal's letters, her powder-puff, and other feminine odds and ends. What she could not remember was if she had posted her note to Perigal, which contained the money she was returning to him. As much as her consternation would permit, she rapidly passed over in her mind everything that had happened since she had left the restaurant in Oxford Street. For the life of her, she could not recall going into a postoffice to purchase the stamp of which she had been in need. Her next thought was the quickest way to get back her property, at which the word police immediately suggested itself. Once outside the house, she made careful note of its number; she then walked quickly till she came upon a policeman, to whom she told her trouble.

"Was you there alone?" asked the constable.

Mavis looked at him inquiringly.

"I mean was you with a gentleman?"

Mavis bit her lip, but saw it would not help her to be indignant. She told the man how she got there, a statement which made him civil and sympathetic.

"It's a bad place, and we've had many complaints about it. You'd better complain to the inspector at the station, miss."

He directed her to where she should go. Exhausted with hunger and the fear of losing all her possessions, she followed the policeman's instructions, till she presently found herself telling an inspector at the station of the theft; he advised her to either make a charge, or, if she disliked the publicity of the police court, to instruct a solicitor. Believing that making a charge would be more effectual, besides speedier, she told the inspector of her decision.

"Very well. Your name, please?"

"Mavis Kenrick."

"Mrs," he wrote, as he glanced at the wedding ring which she now wore on her finger.

"What address, please?" was his next question.

"I haven't one at present."

The man looked at her in surprise, at which Mavis explained how she had come from Melkbridge the day before.

"At least you can give us your husband's address."

"He's abroad," declared Mavis, with as much resolution as she could muster.

"Then you might give me the address of your friends in Melkbridge."

"To write to?" asked Mavis.

"In case it should be necessary."

Mavis was at once aware of the inconvenient consequences to which an application for references to anyone at Melkbridge would give rise, especially as her name and state were alike incorrectly given. She hesitated for a few moments before telling the inspector that, disliking the publicity of the police court, she would prefer to instruct a solicitor. As she left the station, she would have felt considerably crestfallen, had she not been faint from want of food. She dragged her way to a tea-shop, to feel the better for a cup of tea and some toast. The taste of the room in which she had passed the night still fouled her mouth; its stench clung to her clothes. She asked her way to the nearest public baths, where she thought a shilling well spent in buying the luxury of a hot bath. Her next concern was to seek out a solicitor who would assist her to recover her stolen property. She had a healthy distrust of the tribe, and was wondering if, after all, it would not have been better to have risked the inspector's writing to any address she may have given at Melkbridge, rather than trust any chance lawyer with the matter, when she remembered that her old acquaintance, Miss Meakin, was engaged to a solicitor's clerk. She resolved to seek out Miss Meakin, and ask her to get her betrothed's advice and assistance. As she did not know Miss Meakin's present address, she thought the quickest way to obtain it was to call on her old friend Miss Nippett at Blomfield Road, Shepherd's Bush, who kept the register of all those who attended "Poulter's."

She had never quite lost touch with the elderly accompanist; they had sent each other cards at Christmas and infrequently exchanged picture postcards, Miss Nippett's invariably being a front view of "Poulter's," with Mr Poulter on the steps in such a position as not to obscure "Turpsichor" in the background.

Mavis travelled by the Underground to Shepherd's Bush, from where it was only five minutes' walk to Miss Nippett's. The whole way down, she was so dazed by her loss that she could give no thought to anything else. The calamities that now threatened her were infinitely more menacing than before her precious bag had been stolen. It seemed as if man and circumstance had conspired for her undoing. Her suspense of mind was such that it seemed long hours before she knocked at the blistered door in the Blomfield Road where Miss Nippett lived.

Miss Nippett was in, she learned from the red-nosed, chilblain-fingered slut who opened the door.

"What nyme?"

"Mrs Kenrick, who was Miss Keeves," replied Mavis.

"Will you go up?" said the slut when, a few minutes later, she came downstairs.

Mavis went upstairs, past the cupboard containing Miss Nippett's collection of unclaimed "overs," to the door directly beyond.



"Come in" cried a well-remembered voice, as Mavis knocked.

She entered, to see Miss Nippett half rising from a chair before the fire. She was startled by the great change which had taken place in the accompanist's appearance since she had last seen her. She looked many years older; her figure was quite bent; the familiar shawl was too ample for the narrow, stooping shoulders.

"Aren't you well?" asked Mavis, as she kissed her friend's cheek.

"Quite. Reely I am but for a slight cold. Mr Poulter, 'e's well too. Fancy you married!"

"Yes," said Mavis sadly.

But Miss Nippett took no notice of her dejection.

"I've never 'ad time to get married, there's so much to do at 'Poulter's.' You know! Still, there's no knowing."

Mavis, distressed as she was, could hardly restrain a smile.

"I've news too," went on Miss Nippett.

"Have you?" asked Mavis, who was burning to get to the reason of her call.

"Ain't you heard of it?"

"I can't say I have."

By way of explanation, Miss Nippett handed Mavis one of a pile of prospectuses at her elbow; she at once recognised the familiar pamphlet that extolled Mr Poulter's wares.

"See! 'E's got my name on the 'pectus. 'All particulars from Poulter's or Miss Nippett, 19 Blomfield Road, W.' Isn't that something to talk about and think over?"

Mavis hastily assented; she was about to ask for Miss Meakin's address, but Miss Nippett was too quick for her.

"D'ye think he'll win?"

"Who?"

"Mr Poulter, of course. 'Aven't you 'eard?"

"Tell me."

"Oh, I say, you are ignorant! He's competing for the great cotillion prize competition. I thought everybody knew about it."

"I think I've heard something. But could you tell me Miss Meakin's address?"

"11 Baynham Street, North Kensington, near Uxbridge Road station," Miss Nippett informed Mavis, after referring to an exercise book, to add: "This is the dooplicate register of 'Poulter's.' I always keep it here in case the other should get lost. Mr. Poulter, like all them great men, is that careless."

"Come again soon," said Miss Nippett, as Mavis rose to go.

Mavis promised that she would.

"How long have you been married?"

"Not long. Three months."

"Any baby?"

"After three months!" blushed Mavis.

"Working so at 'Poulter's' makes one forget them things. No offence," apologised Miss Nippett.

"Good-bye. I'll look in again soon."

"If you 'ave any babies, see they're taught dancing at 'Poulter's.'"

Between Notting Hill and Wormwood Scrubbs lies a vast desert of human dwellings. Fringing Notting Hill they are inhabited by lower middle-class folk, but, by scarcely perceptible degrees, there is a declension of so-called respectability, till at last the frankly working-class district of Latimer Road is reached. Baynham Street was one of the ill-conditioned, down-at-heel little roads which tenaciously fought an uphill fight with encroaching working-class thoroughfares. Its inhabitants referred with pride to the fact that Baynham Street overlooked a railway, which view could be obtained by craning the neck out of window at risk of dislocation. A brawny man was standing before the open door of No. 11 as Mavis walked up the steps.

"Is Bill coming?" asked the man, as he furtively lifted his hat.

Mavis looked surprised.

"To chuck out this 'ere lodger for Mrs. Scatchard wo' won't pay up," he explained.

"I know nothing about it," said Mavis.

"Ain't you Mrs Dancer, Bill's new second wife?"

Mavis explained that she had come to see Miss Meakin, at which the man walked into the passage and knocked at the first door on the left, as he called out:

"Lady to see you!"

"Who?" asked Miss Meakin, as she displayed a fraction of a scantily attired person through the barely opened door.

"Have you forgotten me?" asked Mavis, as she entered the passage.

"Dear Miss Keeves! So good of you to call!" cried Miss Meakin, not a little affectedly, so Mavis thought, as she raised her hand high above her head to shake hands with her friend in a manner that was once considered fashionable in exclusive Bayswater circles.

She then opened the door wide enough for Mavis to edge her way in. Mavis found herself in an apartment that was normally a pretentiously furnished drawing-room. Just now, a lately vacated bed was made up on the sofa; a recently used washing basin stood on a chair; whilst Miss Meakin's unassumed garments strewed the floor.

"And what's happened to you all this long time?" asked Miss Meakin, as she sat on the edge of a chair in the manner of one receiving a formal call.

"To begin with, I'm married," said Mavis hurriedly, at which piece of information her friend's face fell.

"Any family?" she asked anxiously.

"N-no—not yet."

"I could have married Mr Napper a month ago—in fact he begged me on his knees to," bridled Miss Meakin.

"Why didn't you?"

"We're going to his aunt's at Littlehampton for the honeymoon, but I'm certainly not going till it's the season there."

Mavis smiled.

"Would you?" asked Miss Meakin.

"Not if that sort of thing appealed to me."

When Miss Meakin had explained that she had got up late because she had been to a ball the night before, Mavis told her the reason of her visit, at which Miss Meakin declared that Mr Napper was the very man to help her. Mavis asked for his address. While her friend was writing it down, a violent commotion was heard descending the stairs and advancing along the passage. Mavis rightly guessed this was caused by the forcible ejection of the lodger who had failed with his rent.

To Mavis' surprise, Miss Meakin did not make any reference to this disturbance, but went on talking as if she were living in a refined atmosphere which was wholly removed from possibility of violation.

"There's one thing I should tell you," said Miss Meakin, as Mavis rose to take her leave. "Mr Napper's employer, Mr Keating, besides being a solicitor, sells pianos. Mr N. is expecting a lady friend, who is thinking of buying one 'on the monthly,' so mind you explain what you want."

"I won't forget," said Mavis, making an effort to go. But as voices raised in angry altercation could be heard immediately outside the front door, Miss Meakin detained Mavis, asking, in the politest tone, advice on the subject of the most fashionable material to wear at a select dinner party.

"I've quite given up 'Browning,'" she told Mavis, "he's so old-fashioned to up-to-date people. Now I'm going to be Mrs Napper, when the Littlehampton season comes round, I'm going in exclusively for smartness and fashion."

Mavis making as if she would go, and the disturbance not being finally quelled, Miss Meakin begged Mavis to stay to lunch. She repeatedly insisted on the word lunch, as if it conveyed a social distinction in the speaker.

Mavis had got as far as the door, when it burst open and an elderly woman of considerable avoirdupois broke into the room, to sink helplessly upon a flimsy chair which creaked ominously with its burden.

Miss Meakin introduced this person to Mavis as her aunt, Mrs Scatchard, and reminded the latter how Mavis had rescued her niece from the clutches of the bogus hospital nurse in Victoria Street so many months back.

"That you should call today of all days!" moaned the perspiring Mrs Scatchard.

"Why not today?" asked her niece innocently.

"The day I'm disgraced to the neighbourhood by a 'visitor' being turned out of doors."

"I knew nothing of it," protested Miss Meakin.

"And Mr Scatchard being a government official, as you might say."

"Indeed!" remarked Mavis, who was itching to be off.

"Almost a pillar of the throne, as you might say," moaned the poor woman.

"True enough," murmured her niece.

"A man who, as you might say, has had the eyes of Europe upon him."

"Ah!" sighed Miss Meakin.

"And me, too, who am, as it were, an outpost of blood in this no-class neighbourhood," continued Mrs Scatchard.

Mavis wondered when she would be able to get away.

"My father was a tax-collector," Mrs Scatchard informed Mavis.

"Indeed!" said the latter.

"And in a most select London suburb. Do you believe in blood?"

"I think so."

"Then you must come here often. Blood is so scarce in North Kensington."

"Thank you."

"Why not stay and have a bit of dinner?"

"Lunch," corrected Miss Meakin with a frown.

"We've a lovely sheep's heart and turnips," said Mrs Scatchard, disregarding her niece's pained interruption.

Mavis thanked kindly Mrs Scatchard, but said she must be off. She was not permitted to go before she promised to let Miss Meakin know the result of her visit to Mr Napper.

Mavis spent three of her precious pennies in getting to the office of Mr Keating, which was situated in a tiny court running out of Holborn. Upon the first door she came to was inscribed "A.F. Keating, Solicitor, Commissioner for Oaths," whilst upon an adjacent door was painted "Breibner, Importer of Pianofortes." She tried the handle of the solicitor's door, to find that it was locked. She was wondering what she should do when a tall, thin, podgy-faced man came in from the court. Mavis instinctively guessed that he was Mr Napper.

"'Ave you been waiting long, madam?" he asked.

"I've just come. Are you Mr Napper?"

"It is. Everybody knows me."

"I've come from Miss Meakin."

"Today?" he asked, as his white face lit up.

"I've come straight from her."

"And after what I said at last night's 'light fantastic,' she has sent you to me!" he cried excitedly, as he opened the door on which was inscribed "Breibner."

"RE consultation, madam. If you will be good enough to step this way, I shall be 'appy to take your instructions."

Mavis, despite her distress of mind, was not a little amused at this alteration in Mr Napper's manner. She followed him into Mr Keating's office, where she saw a very small office-boy, who, directly he set his eyes on Mr Napper, made great pretence of being busy. She was shown into an inner room, where she was offered an armchair. Upon taking it, Mr Napper gravely seated himself at a desk and said:

"Mr Keating is un'appily absent. Any confidence made to me is the same as made to 'im."

Mavis recited her trouble, of which Mr Napper put down the details.

When he had got these, Mavis waited in suspense. Mr Napper looked at his watch.

"Do you think you can do anything?" Mavis asked.

"I'm going to do my best, quite as much for Miss Meakin's sake as for the dignity of my profession," replied Mr Napper. "Please read through this, and, if it is correct, kindly sign."

Here he handed Mavis a statement of all she had told him in respect of her loss. After seeing that it was rightly set down, she signed "Mavis Kenrick" at the foot of the document.

"Vincent!" cried Mr Napper, as Mavis handed it back.

"Yessur," answered the tiny office-boy smartly, as he made the most of his height in the doorway.

"I am going out on important business."

"Yessur."

"I shan't be back for the best part of an hour."

"Yessur."

"If this lady cares to, she will wait till my return."

"Yessur."

Mr Napper dismissed Vincent and then turned to Mavis.

"If I may say so, I can see by your face that you're fond of literature," he said.

"I like reading."

"Law and music is my 'obby, as you might say. The higher literature is my intellect."

"Indeed!"

"Let me lend you something to read while you're waiting."

"You're very kind. But I've had nothing to eat. Would you mind if I took it out with me?"

"Delighted! What do you say to Locke's Human Understanding?" he asked, as he produced a book.

"Thank you very much."

"Or here's Butler's Anatomy of Melancholy."

"But—"

"Or 'Obbes's Leviathan," he suggested, producing a third volume.

"Thank you, but Locke will do to begin upon."

"Ask me to explain anything you don't understand," he urged.

"I won't fail to," she replied, at which Mr Napper took his leave.

Mavis went to a neighbouring tea-shop, where she obtained the food of which she was in need. When she returned to Mr Keating's office, she was shown into the inner room by Vincent, who shut the door as he left her. She was still a prey to anxiety, and succeeded in convincing herself how comparatively happy she would be if only she could get back her stolen goods. To distract her thoughts from her present trouble, she tried to be interested in the opening chapter of the work that Mr Napper had lent her. But it proved too formidable in her present state of mind. She would read a passage, to find that it conveyed no meaning; she was more interested in the clock on the mantel-piece and wondering how long it would be before she got any news. One peculiarity of Mr Napper's book attracted her attention: she saw that, whereas the first few pages were dog's-eared and thumb-marked, the succeeding ones were as fresh as when they issued from the bookseller's hands.

While she was thus waiting in suspense, she heard strange sounds coming from the office where Vincent worked. She went to the door, to look through that part of it which was of glass. She saw Vincent, who, so far as she could gather, was talking as if to an audience, the while he held an inkpot in one hand and the office cat in the other. When he had finished talking, he caused these to vanish, at which he acknowledged the applause of an imaginary audience with repeated bows. After another speech, he reproduced the cat and the inkpot, proceedings which led Mavis to think that the boy had conjuring aspirations.

Her heart beat quickly when Mr Napper re-entered the office.

"It's all right!" he hastened to assure her. "You're to come off with me to the station to identify your property."

Mavis thanked him heartfully when she learned that the police, having received a further complaint of the house where she had spent the night, had obtained a warrant and promptly raided the place, with the result that her bag (with other missing property) had been recovered. As they walked in the direction of the station, Mr. Napper asked her how she had got on with Locke's Human Understanding. Upon her replying that it was rather too much for her just then, he said:

"Just you listen to me."

Here he launched into an amazing farrago of scientific terms, in which the names of great thinkers and scientists were mingled at random. There was nothing connected in his talk; he seemed to be repeating, parrot fashion, words and formulas that he had chanced upon in his dipping into the works that he had boasted of comprehending.

Mavis looked at him in astonishment. He mistook her surprise for admiration.

"I'm afraid you haven't understood much of what I've been saying," he remarked.

"Not very much."

"You've paid me a great compliment," he said, looking highly pleased with himself.

Then he spoke of Miss Meakin.

"You'll tell her what I've done for you?"

"Most certainly."

"Last night, at the 'light fantastic' I told you of, we had a bit of a tiff, when I spoke my mind. Would you believe it, she only danced twenty hops with me out of the twenty-three set down?"

"What bad taste!"

"I'm glad you think that. Her sending you to me shows she isn't offended at what I said. I did give it her hot. I threw in plenty of scientific terms and all that."

"Poor girl!" remarked Mavis.

"Yes, she was to be pitied. But here we are at the station."

Mavis went inside with Mr Napper, where she proved her title to her stolen property by minutely describing the contents of her bag, from which she was rejoiced to find nothing had been taken. Her unposted letter to Perigal was with her other possessions.

As they were leaving the station, Mr Napper remarked:

"The day before yesterday I had the greatest compliment of my life paid me."

"And what was that?" asked Mavis.

"A lady told me that she'd known me three years, and that all that time she never understood what my scientific conversation was about."



CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

TRAVAIL

If Mavis had believed that the recovery of her property would give her peace of mind, she soon discovered how grievously she was mistaken.

Directly she left the police station with Mr Napper, all her old fears and forebodings for the future resumed sway over her thoughts. As before, she sought to allay them by undiminished faith in her lover. She accepted Mr Napper's hospitality in the form of tea and toast at a branch of the Aerated Bread Company, where she asked him how much she was in his debt for his services. To her surprise, he replied, "Nothing at all," and added that he was only too glad to assist her, not only for Miss Meakin's sake, but because he felt that Mavis dimly appreciated his intellectuality. Upon Mavis untruthfully replying that she did, Mr Napper gave a further effort to impress, not only her, but others seated about them; he talked his jargon of scientific and philosophical phrases at the top of his voice. She was relieved when she was rid of his company. She then took train to Shepherd's Bush, where she called on Miss Meakin as promised. Much to her surprise, Miss Meakin, who was now robed in a flimsy and not too clean teagown, had not the slightest interest in knowing if Mavis had recovered her property; indeed, she had forgotten that Mavis had lost anything. She was only concerned to know what Mavis thought of Mr Napper, and what this person had said about herself: on this last matter, Mavis was repeatedly cross-questioned. Mavis then spoke of a matter she had thought of on the way down: that of engaging a room at Mrs Scatchard's if she had one to let. Miss Meakin, however, protested that she had nothing to do with the business arrangements of the house, and declared that her aunt had better be consulted.

Upon Mavis interviewing Mrs Scatchard on the matter, the latter declared that her niece had suggested the subject to her directly after Mavis had left in the morning, a statement which Miss Meakin did not appear to overhear. Mrs Scatchard showed Mavis a clean, homely little room. The walls were decorated with several photographs of celebrations, which, so far as she could see, were concerned with the doings of royalty. When it came to the discussion of terms, Mrs Scatchard pointed out to Mavis the advantage of being in a house rented by a man like Mr Scatchard, who was "so mixed up with royalty," as she phrased it; but, partly in consideration of the timely service which Mavis had once rendered Miss Meakin, and largely on the score that Mavis boasted of blood (she had done nothing of the kind), Mrs Scatchard offered her the room, together with use of the bathroom, for four-and-sixpence a week. Upon Mavis learning that the landlady would not object to Jill's presence, she closed with the offer. At Mrs Scatchard's invitation, she spent the evening in the sitting-room downstairs, where she was introduced to Mr Scatchard. If, as had been alleged, Mr Scatchard was a pillar of the throne, that august institution was in a parlous condition. He was a red-headed, red-eyed, clean-shaven man, in appearance not unlike an elderly cock; his blotchy face, thick utterance, and the smell of his breath, all told Mavis that he was addicted to drink. Mavis wondered how this fuddled man, whose wife let lodgings in a shabby corner of Shepherd's Bush, could be remotely associated with Government, till it leaked out that he had been for many years, and still was, one of the King's State trumpeters.

Mavis was grateful to the Scatchards for their humble hospitality, if only because it prevented her mind from dwelling on her extremity. She was so tired with all she had gone through, that, directly she got to bed, she fell asleep, to awake about five with a mind possessed by fears for the future. Try as she could, faith in her lover refused to supply the relief necessary to allow her further sleep.

About seven, kindly Mrs Scatchard brought her up some tea, her excuse for this attention being that "blood" could not be expected to get up without a cup of this stimulant. Mrs Scatchard, like most stout women, was of a nervous, kindly, ingenuous disposition. It hurt Mavis considerably to tell her the story she had concocted, of a husband in straitened circumstances in America, who was struggling to prepare a home for her. Mrs Scatchard was herself a bereaved mother. Much moved by her recollections, she gave Mavis needed and pertinent advice with reference to her condition.

"There is kindness in the world," thought Mavis, when she was alone.

After breakfast, that was supplied at a previously arranged charge of fourpence, Mavis, fearing the company of her thoughts, betook herself to Miss Nippett in the Blomfield Road.

She found her elderly friend in bed, a queer, hapless figure in her pink flannel nightgown.

"I haven't heard anything," said Miss Nippett, as soon as she caught sight of Mavis.

"Of what?"

"What luck Mr Poulter's had at the dancing competition! Haven't you come about that?"

"I came to see how you were."

"Don't you worry about me. I shall be right again soon; reely I shall."

Mavis tried to discover if Miss Nippett were properly looked after, but without result, Miss Nippett's mind being wholly possessed by "Poulter's" and its chief.

"He promised to send me a postcard to say how he got on, but I suppose he was too busy to remember," sighed Miss Nippett.

"Surely not!"

"He's like all these great men: all their 'earts in their fame, with no thought for their humble assistants," she complained, to add after a few moments' pause, "A pity you're married."

"Why?"

"'Cause, since I've been laid up, he's been in want of a reliable accompanist."

Mavis explained that she would be glad of some work, at which her friend said:

"Then off you go at once to the academy. He's often spoken of you, and quite nicely, and he's asked for you in family prayers. If he's won the prize, it's as sure as 'knife' that he'll give you the job. And mind you come and tell me if he's won."

Mavis thanked her wheezing, kind-hearted friend, and promised that she would return directly she had any news. Then, with hope in her heart, she hurried to the well-remembered academy, where she had sought work so many eventful months ago. As before, she looked into the impassive face of "Turpsichor" while she waited for the door to be answered.

A slatternly servant of the charwoman species replied to her summons. Upon Mavis saying that she wanted to see Mr Poulter immediately, she was shown into the "Ladies' Waiting Room," from which Mavis gathered that Mr Poulter had returned.

After a while, Mr Poulter came into the room with a shy, self-conscious smile upon his lovable face.

"You've heard?" he asked, as she shook hands.

Mavis looked at him in surprise.

"Of course you have, and have come to congratulate me," he continued.

"I'm glad you've been successful," said Mavis, now divining the reason of his elation.

"Yes" (here he sighed happily), "I've won the great cotillion prize competition. Just think of it!" Here he took a deep breath before saying, "All the dancing-masters in the United Kingdom competed, even including Gellybrand" (here his voice and face perceptibly hardened), "but I won."

"I congratulate you," said Mavis.

Mr Poulter's features weakened into a broad smile eloquent of an immense satisfaction.

"You can tell people you've been one of the first to congratulate me," he remarked.

"I won't forget. I was sorry to see that Miss Nippett is so unwell."

"It's most unfortunate; it so interferes with the evening classes."

"But she may get well soon."

"I fear not."

"Really?" asked Mavis, genuinely concerned for her friend's health.

"It's a great pity. Accompanists like her are hard to find. Besides, she was well acquainted with all the many ramifications of the academy."

Mavis recalled that, in the old days of her association with "Poulter's," she had noticed that otherwise kindly Mr Poulter took Miss Nippett's body and soul loyalty to him quite as a matter of course. Time, apparently, had not caused him to think otherwise of the faithful accompanist than as a once capable but now failing machine.

Mr Poulter asked Mavis what had happened to her since he had last seen her. She told him the fiction of her marriage; it hurt her to see how glibly the lie now fell from her lips.

After Mr Poulter had congratulated her and her absent husband, he said:

"I fear you would not care to undertake any accompanying."

"But I should."

"As you did before?"

"Certainly!"

It was then arranged that Mavis should commence work at the academy on that day, for much the same terms she was paid before. This matter being settled, she asked for notepaper and envelope, on which she wrote to Mrs Farthing, asking her to be so good as to send Jill at once, and to be sure to let her know by what train she would arrive at Paddington. Mavis was careful to head the notepaper with the address of the academy; she did not wish anyone at Melkbridge to know her actual address. After taking leave of Mr Poulter and posting her letter, she repaired to Miss Nippett's as arranged. The accompanist was now out of bed, in a chair before the fire. Directly she caught sight of Mavis, she said:

"'As he won?"

"Yes, he's won the great cotillion prize competition."

A look of intense joy illumined Miss Nippett's face.

"Isn't he proud?" she asked.

"Very!"

"An' me not there to see him in his triumph." A cloud overspread Miss Nippett's features.

"What's the matter?" asked Mavis.

"Did he—did he send and tell you to tell me as 'ow he'd won."

The wistful old eyes were so pleading, that Mavis fibbed.

"Of course he sent me."

"I thought he wouldn't forget his old friend," she remarked with a sigh of relief. "'E'd surely know I was anxious to know."

Mavis told Miss Nippett of her engagement to play at "Poulter's" during the latter's absence.

"Don't you count on it being for long," said Miss Nippett.

"I hope it won't be, for your sake."

"I'm counting the minute' till I shall be back again at the academy," declared Miss Nippett.

Mavis, as she looked at the eager, pinched face, could well believe that she was speaking the truth.

"I shall buy you a bottle of port wine," said Mavis.

"What say?"

Mavis repeated her words.

"Oh, I say! Fancy me 'avin' port wine! I once 'ad a glass; it did make me feel 'appy."

Two days later, in accordance with the contents of a letter she had received from Mrs Farthing, Mavis met the train at Paddington that was to bring her dear Jill from Melkbridge. She discovered her friend huddled in a corner of the guard's van; her grief was piteous to behold, her eyes being full of tears, which the kindly attentions of the guard had not dissipated. Directly she saw her mistress, Jill uttered a cry that was almost human in its gladness, and tried to jump into Mavis' arms.

When Jill was released, Mavis hugged her in her arms, careless of the attention her devotion attracted.

With her friend restored to her, that evening was the happiest she had spent for some time.

For many succeeding weeks, Mavis passed her mornings with Jill, or Miss Nippett, or both; and most of her afternoons and all of her evenings at the academy. The long hours, together with the monotonous nature of the work, greatly taxed her energies, lessened as these were by the physical stress through which she was passing.

She obtained infrequent distraction from the peculiarities of the pupils. One, in particular, who was a fat Jewess, named Miss Hyman, greatly amused her. This person was desperately anxious to learn waltzing, but was handicapped by bandy legs. As she spun round and round the room with Mr Poulter, or any other partner, she would close her eyes and continually repeat aloud, "One, two, three; one, two, three," the while her feet kept step with the music.