r lover she felt her own case to be
unique. Driven to answer in a moment of intolerable irritation, what
else could she have said?

But he had not written! What did that mean? At the moment of
discovering her departure, Erskine had been consumed with anger, but
afterwards, had his mother's counsels prevailed? Had he repented
himself of his hasty impulse? Would the days pass on, and the months,
and the years, and leave her like Cecil, solitary, apart?

Claire made a pretence at eating her breakfast, and then, too restless
to stay indoors, put on her hat, and went out to roam the streets until
it should be time to visit Sophie in her hospital.

Two hours later she returned and packed up not only her entire wardrobe,
but the whole of her personal possessions. In the course of her walk
there had come to her one of those curious contradictory impulses which
are so characteristic of a woman's nature. Having poured out her heart
in grief because Erskine had neither written nor followed her to town,
she was now restlessly impatient to make communication impossible, and
to bury herself where she could not be found. Before leaving the house
she made Lizzie happy by a present of money, accompanied by quite a
goodly bundle of clothing, after which she interviewed the landlady,
gave notice that she no longer needed the rooms, and wrote out a cheque
in payment of all claims. Then a taxi was summoned, the various boxes
piled on top, and another chapter of life had come to an end.

Claire drove to the station, whence she proposed to take a late
afternoon train to the farm, deposited her boxes in the left luggage
office, and strolled listlessly towards the great bookstall under the
clock. Another hour remained to be whiled away before she could start
for the hospital; she would buy a book, sit in the waiting-room, and try
to bury herself in its pages. She strolled slowly down the length of
the stall, her eyes passing listlessly from one pile of books to
another, finding little interest in them, and even less in the men and
women who stood by her side. As Mrs Fanshawe would have said, "No one
was in town"; even school-mistresses had flown from the region of bricks
and mortar. If she had thought about it at all, Claire would have said
that there was no one she _could_ meet, but suddenly a hand grasped her
arm, and brought her to a halt. She started violently, and for an
instant her heart leapt with a wild glad hope. It w