re lamentably unfulfilled. She had
rehearsed the scene ever since it came into her head; the reality seemed
unfamiliar. She felt no nervousness and no hostility, only a sort of
painful interest and admiration. And how could this or any other woman
help falling in love with George?

The first uncertain minute over, Mrs. Bellew's eyes were as friendly as
if she had been quite within her rights in all she had done; and Mrs.
Pendyce could not help meeting friendliness halfway.

"Don't be angry with me for coming. George doesn't know. I felt I must
come to see you. Do you think that you two quite know all you're doing?
It seems so dreadful, and it's not only yourselves, is it?"

Mrs. Bellew's smile vanished.

"Please don't say 'you two,'" she said.

Mrs. Pendyce stammered:

"I don't understand."

Mrs. Bellew looked her in the face and smiled; and as she smiled she
seemed to become a little coarser.

"Well, I think it's quite time you did! I don't love your son. I did
once, but I don't now. I told him so yesterday, once for all."

Mrs. Pendyce heard those words, which made so vast, so wonderful a
difference--words which should have been like water in a wilderness
--with a sort of horror, and all her spirit flamed up into her eyes.

"You don't love him?" she cried.

She felt only a blind sense of insult and affront.

This woman tire of George? Tire of her son? She looked at Mrs. Bellew,
on whose face was a kind of inquisitive compassion, with eyes that had
never before held hatred.

"You have tired of him? You have given him up? Then the sooner I go to
him the better! Give me the address of his rooms, please."

Helen Bellew knelt down at the bureau and wrote on an envelope, and the
grace of the woman pierced Mrs. Pendyce to the heart.

She took the paper. She had never learned the art of abuse, and no words
could express what was in her heart, so she turned and went out.

Mrs. Bellew's voice sounded quick and fierce behind her.

"How could I help getting tired? I am not you. Now go!"

Mrs. Pendyce wrenched open the outer door. Descending the stairs, she
felt for the bannister. She had that awful sense of physical soreness
and shrinking which violence, whether their own or others', brings to
gentle souls.

CHAPTER V

THE MOTHER AND THE SON

To Mrs. Pendyce, Chelsea was an unknown land, and to find her way to
George's rooms would have taken her long had she been by nature what s