e during the past half-year. Why had
she written just now, after so long a silence? Where, and under what
circumstances, should he meet her? Did she think to find him the same
as when they last talked together?

Through the night he woke constantly, and always with thoughts busy
about Ida. In the morning his first impulse was to re-read her message;
received so carelessly, it had in the meantime become of more account,
and Waymark laughed in his wonted way as he saw himself thus swayed
between forces he could not control. The ordinary day's task was
neglected, and he impatiently waited for the hour when he could be sure
of finding Ida at home. The address was at Fulham, and, on reaching it,
he found a large new block of the kind known as model lodging-houses.
Ida's number was up at the very top. When he knocked, the door opened
immediately, and she stood there, holding out her hand to him.

She wore the same dress that she had worn at Hastings, but the gold
brooch and watch-chain were missing, and her hair was arranged in a
simpler way. She was a trifle pale, perhaps, but that might be due to
the excitement of the moment; her voice shook a little as she spoke.

Waymark looked about him as he went in. There appeared to be two rooms,
one of them a very small bedroom, the other fitted with a cooking-grate
and oven; the kind of tenement suitable to very poor working-people.
The floors were bare, and there was nothing in the way of furniture
beyond the most indispensable articles: a table, two chairs, and a few
cups, saucers, and plates on a shelf; through the half-open door, he
saw that the bed-room was equally plain. A fire was burning, and a
kettle on it; and in front, on a little square piece of carpet, lay
Ida's inseparable friend, Grim. Grim had lifted his head at Waymark's
entrance, and, with gathering curiosity in his eyes, slowly stood up;
then stretched himself, and, looking first at one, then at the other,
waited in doubt.

Ida stooped and took him up in her arms.

"And who's this?" she asked, talking to him as one talks to a child,
whilst she pressed his warm black cheek against her own. "Does Grim
remember who this is? We still keep together," she added, looking at
Waymark. "All day long, whilst I'm away, he keeps house; I'm often
afraid he suffers dreadfully from loneliness, but, you see, I'm obliged
to lock him in. And he knows exactly the time when I come home. I
always find him sitting on that chair by