mpathy, Jack, but just now I
can't do with too much of you. Go right away--to anywhere, and don't
come back until you're wanted. I've got to think how I can best do the
thing that's right to everybody."

CHAPTER XXVIII

ALTON FINDS A WAY

Daylight was fading, and it was growing dim in the little upper room
where Miss Townshead sat alone. The front of the stove was, however,
open, and now and then a flicker of radiance fell upon the girl, and
showed that her eyes were hazy, and there were traces of moisture on
her cheek. Her patience had been taxed to the uttermost that day, but
Townshead, who had spent most of it in querulous reproaches, had gone
out, and his daughter was thankful to be alone at last, for the effort
to retain a show of composure had become almost unendurable.

It was with a sinking heart she glanced down across the roofs of the
city into the busy streets where already the big lights were blinking,
and remembered all she had borne with there during the last few days.
Somebody, it seemed, had industriously spread the story of her
dismissal, and a refusal had followed every application she made for
employment; but while that alone was sufficient to cause her
consternation, the half-contemptuous pity of her former companions, and
the fashion in which one or two of them had avoided her, were almost
worse to bear, and sitting alone in the gathering darkness the girl
flushed crimson at the memory. There was also the grim question by
what means she could stave off actual want to grapple with, and to that
she could as yet find no answer, while her eyes grew dim as she glanced
about the little room. Townshead had changed his quarters, and many of
the trifles that caught his daughter's glance had cost her a meal or
hours of labour with the needle after a long day in the city, but they
made the place a home, and she knew what it would cost her to part with
them.

Twice she had raised her head and straightened herself with an effort,
while a flicker of pride and resolution crept into her eyes, only to
sink back again limply in her chair, when there was a tapping at the
door, and she rose as some one came into the room. Then she set her
lips and stood up very straight as she saw that it was Alton.

"I could find nobody about, and there was no answer when I knocked," he
said. "So I just came in."

The girl moved a little so that she could see his face in the light
from the stove, and it was quie