s of milk. Hilda
had learnt that day for the first time that at a certain hour every
evening George Cannon drank a glass of warm milk, and that this glass of
warm milk was an important factor in his daily comfort. He now took the
glass and drank it off. And Hilda had a peculiar sensation of being more
intimate with him than she had ever been before.

They sat down to the square table in the middle of the room crowded with
oddments of furniture, including a desk which George Cannon had
appropriated to his own exclusive use. This desk was open and a portion
of its contents were spread abroad on the crimson cloth of the table.
Among them Hilda noticed, with her accustomed clerkly eye, two numbers
of _The Hotel-Keeper and Boarding-House Review_, several sheets of
advertisement-scales, and a many-paged document with the heading,
"Inventory of Furniture at No. 59 Preston Street"; also a large legal
envelope inscribed, "Lessways Estate."

From the latter George Cannon drew forth an engraved and flourished
paper, which he silently placed in front of her. It was a receipt signed
by the manager of the Brighton branch of the Southern Counties Bank for
the sum of three thousand four hundred and forty-five pounds deposited
at call by Miss Hilda Lessways.

"Everything is now settled up," he said. "Here are all the figures," and
he handed her another paper showing the whole of the figures for the
realization of her real property and of her furniture. "It's in your
name, and nobody can touch it but you."

She glanced at the figures vaguely, not attempting to comprehend them.
As for the receipt, it fascinated her. The fragile scrap represented her
livelihood, her future, her salvation. It alone stood between her and
unimagined terrors. And she was surprised to see it, surprised by its
assurance that no accident had happened to her possessions during the
process of transformation carried out by George Cannon. For, though he
had throughout been almost worryingly meticulous in his business
formalities and his promptitudes--never had any interest or rent been a
day late!--she admitted to herself now that she had been afraid... that,
in fact, she had not utterly trusted him.

"And what's got to be done with this?" she asked simply, fingering the
receipt.

He smiled at her, with a touch of protective and yet sardonic
condescension, without saying a word.

And suddenly it struck her that ages had elapsed since her first
interview with