t, 'I wouldn't go near
them for the world!' and then, one morning, had awakened from a dream of
Fleur waving to her from a boat with a wild unhappy gesture. And she had
changed her mind.

When Fleur came forward and said to her, "Do come up while I'm changing
my dress," she had followed up the stairs. The girl led the way into
Imogen's old bedroom, set ready for her toilet.

June sat down on the bed, thin and upright, like a little spirit in the
sear and yellow. Fleur locked the door.

The girl stood before her divested of her wedding dress. What a pretty
thing she was!

"I suppose you think me a fool," she said, with quivering lips, "when it
was to have been Jon. But what does it matter? Michael wants me, and I
don't care. It'll get me away from home." Diving her hand into the
frills on her breast, she brought out a letter. "Jon wrote me this."

June read: "Lake Okanagen, British Columbia. I'm not coming back to
England. Bless you always. Jon."

"She's made safe, you see," said Fleur.

June handed back the letter.

"That's not fair to Irene," she said, "she always told Jon he could do as
he wished."

Fleur smiled bitterly. "Tell me, didn't she spoil your life too?" June
looked up. "Nobody can spoil a life, my dear. That's nonsense. Things
happen, but we bob up."

With a sort of terror she saw the girl sink on her knees and bury her
face in the djibbah. A strangled sob mounted to June's ears.

"It's all right--all right," she murmured, "Don't! There, there!"

But the point of the girl's chin was pressed ever closer into her thigh,
and the sound was dreadful of her sobbing.

Well, well! It had to come. She would feel better afterward! June
stroked the short hair of that shapely head; and all the scattered
mother-sense in her focussed itself and passed through the tips of her
fingers into the girl's brain.

"Don't sit down under it, my dear," she said at last. "We can't control
life, but we can fight it. Make the best of things. I've had to. I
held on, like you; and I cried, as you're crying now. And look at me!"

Fleur raised her head; a sob merged suddenly into a little choked laugh.
In truth it was a thin and rather wild and wasted spirit she was looking
at, but it had brave eyes.

"All right!" she said. "I'm sorry. I shall forget him, I suppose, if I
fly fast and far enough."

And, scrambling to her feet, she went over to the wash-stand.

June watched her removing with