er Pa, or like Jimmy, was
much better than her loafer of a tramp cyclist!

"And ... Ma?" asked Lily.

"Your Ma," said Jimmy, in a lower voice, "cried ... oh, how she cried when
she found that you had gone! No doubt, she exaggerated any wrong she had
done you. It seems she fell upon her knees and prayed and asked for
forgiveness."

"Forgiveness? What for? Of whom?" Lily inquired.

"Why," said Jimmy, in a serious tone, "of whom do you think people ask
forgiveness, when they are alone, on their knees?"

"Oh," said Lily, greatly touched, "I understand! So they didn't put the
blame on me?"

"What blame?"

"For my marriage," said Lily, lowering her eyes.

"No ... if you had gone off to live with him ... oh, not you, not you, I
know!" protested Jimmy, seeing a gesture of Lily's. "But marriage is
different, I suppose. You had the right, you were old enough to go away
with the man you loved."

Jimmy turned pale as he said this; but Lily, hanging her head and red with
shame, did not notice it.

"What!" said Jimmy. "You're blushing! Do you regret it?"

Lily did not reply.

"Then," continued Jimmy slowly, "what they said--I wouldn't believe it,
but you know they say a lot of things--is it true?"

She nodded yes and raised her eyes to him with a sad, weary smile.

"He doesn't love you? And ... and ... you, Lily," asked Jimmy, taking her
hand in his, "don't you love him?"

"Certainly not!" said Lily, with such an accent of conviction and such a
look of disgust that Jimmy was, at one and the same time, delighted to the
bottom of his heart and pained to the verge of tears.

Poor Lily! He now noticed her pallor, the dark rims round her eyes, that
exquisite face refined by inmost grief. Lily, upon whom, since her visit
to the shop in Gresse Street, he had built his hopes of happiness! It
seemed to him like yesterday and already it was the distant past. Was that
what her rebellion, her bid for freedom had ended in? Was that the
crowning point of her hard life? Lily, fashioned to be the companion of a
loving heart, was the prey of a footy rotter! Oh, if Jimmy had not
controlled himself, if he had not clenched his teeth, for fear of talking!
If he had listened to his anger, let loose the storm that raged within
him, shouted out what he felt! But what would be the good of telling her
his love? Why add to Lily's sorrows by letting her know what might have
been and thus cause trouble in her household, when he wished for one