hand was on his shoulder.

"No," she said, "you don't know who his employer is."

Midwinter stopped and looked at her.

"Strange things have happened since you left us," she went on. "I have
been forced to give up my situation, and I am followed and watched by a
paid spy. Don't ask who forced me out of my situation, and who pays the
spy--at least not just yet. I can't make up my mind to tell you till I
am a little more composed. Let the wretch go. Do you mind seeing me
safe back to my lodging? It's in your way home. May I--may I ask for the
support of your arm? My little stock of courage is quite exhausted." She
took his arm and clung close to it. The woman who had tyrannized over
Mr. Bashwood was gone, and the woman who had tossed the spy's hat into
the pool was gone. A timid, shrinking, interesting creature filled the
fair skin and trembled on the symmetrical limbs of Miss Gwilt. She
put her handkerchief to her eyes. "They say necessity has no law," she
murmured, faintly. "I am treating you like an old friend. God knows I
want one!"

They went on toward the town. She recovered herself with a touching
fortitude; she put her handkerchief back in her pocket, and persisted in
turning the conversation on Midwinter's walking tour. "It is bad enough
to be a burden on you," she said, gently pressing on his arm as she
spoke; "I mustn't distress you as well. Tell me where you have been, and
what you have seen. Interest me in your journey; help me to escape from
myself."

They reached the modest little lodging in the miserable little suburb.
Miss Gwilt sighed, and removed her glove before she took Midwinter's
hand. "I have taken refuge here," she said, simply. "It is clean and
quiet; I am too poor to want or expect more. We must say good-by, I
suppose, unless"--she hesitated modestly, and satisfied herself by a
quick look round that they were unobserved--"unless you would like
to come in and rest a little? I feel so gratefully toward you, Mr.
Midwinter! Is there any harm, do you think, in my offering you a cup of
tea?"

The magnetic influence of her touch was thrilling through him while she
spoke. Change and absence, to which he had trusted to weaken her hold
on him, had treacherously strengthened it instead. A man exceptionally
sensitive, a man exceptionally pure in his past life, he stood hand in
hand, in the tempting secrecy of the night, with the first woman who had
exercised over him the all-absorbing influence of he