up to bed by means
of a cord slung about her shoulders and fastened to his waist. Mavis
subsequently learned that Mrs Budd had performed this feat every night
for the last four years, her husband having lost the use of his limbs.

After Mavis had been a few days at Mrs Budd's, she was sufficiently
recovered to walk about Swanage. One day she was even strong enough to
get as far as the Tilly Whim caves, where she was both surprised and
disgusted to find that some surpassing mediocrity had had the
fatuousness to deface the sheer glory of the cliffs with improving
texts, such as represent the sum of the world's wisdom to the mind of a
successful grocer, who has a hankering after the natural science which
is retailed in ninepenny popular handbooks. Often in these walks, Mavis
encountered the man whom she had seen upon the day of her arrival; as
before, he was pulling himself along on his tricycle. The first two or
three times they met, the cripple looked very hard at Jill, who always
accompanied her mistress. Afterwards, he took no notice of the dog; he
had eyes only for Mavis, in whom he appeared to take a lively interest.
Mavis, who was well used to being stared at by men, paid no heed to the
man's frequent glances in her direction.

The sea air and the change did much for Mavis's health; she was
gradually roused from the lethargy from which she had suffered for so
long. But with the improvement in her condition came a firmer
realisation of the hard lot which was hers. Her love for Charlie
Perigal had resulted in the birth of a child. Although her lover had
broken his vows, she could, in some measure, have consoled herself for
his loss by devoting her life to the upbringing of her boy. Now her
little one had been taken from her, leaving a vast emptiness in her
life which nothing could fill. God, fate, chance, whatever power it was
that ruled her life, had indeed dealt hardly with her. She felt an old
woman, although still a girl in years. She had no interest in life: she
had nothing, no one to live for.

One bright March day, Mavis held two letters in her hand as she sat by
the window of her sitting-room at Mrs Budd's. She read and re-read
them, after which her eyes would glance with much perplexity in the
direction of the daffodils now opening in the garden in front of the
house. She pondered the contents of the letters; then, as if to
distract her thoughts from an unpalatable conclusion, which the subject
matter of o