; there was besides her rent and her food, and the baby's keep for
a week. He gave her eight pounds ten.

"Thanks very much," she said.

She left him.

LXXVII

After lunching in the basement of the Medical School Philip went back to
his rooms. It was Saturday afternoon, and the landlady was cleaning the
stairs.

"Is Mr. Griffiths in?" he asked.

"No, sir. He went away this morning, soon after you went out."

"Isn't he coming back?"

"I don't think so, sir. He's taken his luggage."

Philip wondered what this could mean. He took a book and began to read. It
was Burton's Journey to Meccah, which he had just got out of the
Westminster Public Library; and he read the first page, but could make no
sense of it, for his mind was elsewhere; he was listening all the time for
a ring at the bell. He dared not hope that Griffiths had gone away
already, without Mildred, to his home in Cumberland. Mildred would be
coming presently for the money. He set his teeth and read on; he tried
desperately to concentrate his attention; the sentences etched themselves
in his brain by the force of his effort, but they were distorted by the
agony he was enduring. He wished with all his heart that he had not made
the horrible proposition to give them money; but now that he had made it
he lacked the strength to go back on it, not on Mildred's account, but on
his own. There was a morbid obstinacy in him which forced him to do the
thing he had determined. He discovered that the three pages he had read
had made no impression on him at all; and he went back and started from
the beginning: he found himself reading one sentence over and over again;
and now it weaved itself in with his thoughts, horribly, like some formula
in a nightmare. One thing he could do was to go out and keep away till
midnight; they could not go then; and he saw them calling at the house
every hour to ask if he was in. He enjoyed the thought of their
disappointment. He repeated that sentence to himself mechanically. But he
could not do that. Let them come and take the money, and he would know
then to what depths of infamy it was possible for men to descend. He could
not read any more now. He simply could not see the words. He leaned back
in his chair, closing his eyes, and, numb with misery, waited for Mildred.

The landlady came in.

"Will you see Mrs. Miller, sir?"

"Show her in."

Philip pulled himself together to receive her without any sign of what he
was