he had a business engagement. He grew very skilful in
slipping out of the hospital unseen. Once, when he went back to his
lodgings at midnight, he saw a woman standing at the area railings and
suspecting who it was went to beg a shake-down in Ramsden's rooms; next
day the landlady told him that Mildred had sat crying on the doorsteps for
hours, and she had been obliged to tell her at last that if she did not go
away she would send for a policeman.

"I tell you, my boy," said Ramsden, "you're jolly well out of it. Harry
says that if he'd suspected for half a second she was going to make such
a blooming nuisance of herself he'd have seen himself damned before he had
anything to do with her."

Philip thought of her sitting on that doorstep through the long hours of
the night. He saw her face as she looked up dully at the landlady who sent
her away.

"I wonder what she's doing now."

"Oh, she's got a job somewhere, thank God. That keeps her busy all day."

The last thing he heard, just before the end of the summer session, was
that Griffiths, urbanity had given way at length under the exasperation of
the constant persecution. He had told Mildred that he was sick of being
pestered, and she had better take herself off and not bother him again.

"It was the only thing he could do," said Ramsden. "It was getting a bit
too thick."

"Is it all over then?" asked Philip.

"Oh, he hasn't seen her for ten days. You know, Harry's wonderful at
dropping people. This is about the toughest nut he's ever had to crack,
but he's cracked it all right."

Then Philip heard nothing more of her at all. She vanished into the vast
anonymous mass of the population of London.

LXXXI

At the beginning of the winter session Philip became an out-patients'
clerk. There were three assistant-physicians who took out-patients, two
days a week each, and Philip put his name down for Dr. Tyrell. He was
popular with the students, and there was some competition to be his clerk.
Dr. Tyrell was a tall, thin man of thirty-five, with a very small head,
red hair cut short, and prominent blue eyes: his face was bright scarlet.
He talked well in a pleasant voice, was fond of a little joke, and treated
the world lightly. He was a successful man, with a large consulting
practice and a knighthood in prospect. From commerce with students and
poor people he had the patronising air, and from dealing always with the
sick he had the healthy man's jovial cond