sie Broke. Tell her I'd like to speak to
her again. Quick, man!'

Mr. Beeton crossed the road under the noses of the omnibuses and
arrested Bessie then on her way northward. She recognised him as the
man in authority who used to glare at her when she passed up Dick's
staircase, and her first impulse was to run.

'Wasn't you Mr. Heldar's model?' said Mr. Beeton, planting himself in
front of her. 'You was. He's on the other side of the road and he'd like
to see you.'

'Why?' said Bessie, faintly. She remembered--indeed had never for long
forgotten--an affair connected with a newly finished picture.

'Because he has asked me to do so, and because he's most particular
blind.'

'Drunk?'

'No. 'Orspital blind. He can't see. That's him over there.'

Dick was leaning against the parapet of the bridge as Mr. Beeton pointed
him out--a stub-bearded, bowed creature wearing a dirty magenta-coloured
neckcloth outside an unbrushed coat. There was nothing to fear from such
an one. Even if he chased her, Bessie thought, he could not follow far.
She crossed over, and Dick's face lighted up. It was long since a woman
of any kind had taken the trouble to speak to him.

'I hope you're well, Mr. Heldar?' said Bessie, a little puzzled. Mr.
Beeton stood by with the air of an ambassador and breathed responsibly.

'I'm very well indeed, and, by Jove! I'm glad to see--hear you, I mean,
Bess. You never thought it worth while to turn up and see us again after
you got your money. I don't know why you should. Are you going anywhere
in particular just now?'

'I was going for a walk,' said Bessie.

'Not the old business?' Dick spoke under his breath.

'Lor, no! I paid my premium'--Bessie was very proud of that word--'for a
barmaid, sleeping in, and I'm at the bar now quite respectable. Indeed I
am.'

Mr. Beeton had no special reason to believe in the loftiness of human
nature. Therefore he dissolved himself like a mist and returned to his
gas-plugs without a word of apology. Bessie watched the flight with a
certain uneasiness; but so long as Dick appeared to be ignorant of the
harm that had been done to him...

'It's hard work pulling the beer-handles,' she went on, 'and they've got
one of them penny-in-the-slot cash-machines, so if you get wrong by a
penny at the end of the day--but then I don't believe the machinery is
right. Do you?'

'I've only seen it work. Mr. Beeton.'

'He's gone.

'I'm afraid I must ask you to help me hom