her with a
show of warm welcome, but appeared nervous and out of spirits.

'I am not very well,' she admitted, 'and that's why I have shut out the
dreadful weather. Isn't it the most sensible way of getting through the
worst of a London winter? To pretend that there is daylight is quite
ridiculous, so one may as well have the comforts of night.'

'I have come to speak about Horace,' said Nancy, at once. In any case,
she would have felt embarrassment, and it was increased by the look
with which Mrs. Damerel kept regarding her,--a look of confusion, of
shrinking, of intense and painful scrutiny.

'You know what has happened?'

'I had a letter from him this morning, to say that his marriage was
broken off--nothing else. So I came over from Harrow to see him. But
he had hardly a minute to speak to me. He was just starting for
Bournemouth.'

'And what did he tell you?' asked Mrs. Damerel, who remained
standing,--or rather had risen, after a pretence of seating herself.

'Nothing at all. He was very strange in his manner. He said he would
write.'

'You know that he is seriously ill?'

'I am afraid he must be.'

'He has grown much worse during the last fortnight. Don't you suspect
any reason for his throwing off poor Winifred?'

'I wondered whether he had met that girl again. But it seemed very
unlikely.'

'He has. She was at Bournemouth for her health. She, too, is ill;
consumptive, like poor Horace,--of course a result of the life she has
been leading. And he is going to marry her.'Nancy's heart sank. She
could say nothing. She remembered Horace's face, and saw in him the
victim of ruthless destiny.

'I have done my utmost. He didn't speak of me?'

'Only to say that his engagement with Winifred was brought about by
you.'

'And wasn't I justified? If the poor boy must die, he would at least
have died with friends about him, and in peace. I always feared just
what has happened. It's only a few months ago that he forgave me for
being, as he thought, the cause of that girl's ruin; and since then
I have hardly dared to lose sight of him. I went down to Bournemouth
unexpectedly, and was with him when that creature came to the door in a
carriage. You haven't seen her. She looks what she is, the vilest of the
vile. As if any one can be held responsible for that! She was born to be
what she is. And if I had the power, I would crush out her hateful life
to save poor Horace!'

Nancy, though at one with the speaker