tears and trembling overcame her. She leant
against the side of the cab, struggling in vain to regain her
self-control, gasping incoherent things about the woman she had not been
able to save. He tried to soothe and calm her, his own heart wrung. But
she hardly heard him.

At last they turned into Maine Street, and she saw the gateway of
Brown's Buildings.

"Here we are," she said faintly, summoning all her will; "do you know
you will have to help me across that court, and upstairs--then I shan't
be any more trouble."

So, leaning on Raeburn's arm, Marcella made her slow progress across the
court of Brown's Buildings and through the gaping groups of children.
Then at the top of her flight of steps she withdrew herself from him
with a wan smile.

"Now I am home," she said. "Good-bye!"

Aldous looked round him well at Brown's Buildings as he departed. Then
he got into a hansom, and drove to Lady Winterbourne's house, and
implored her to fetch and nurse Marcella Boyce, using her best
cleverness to hide all motion of his in the matter.

After which he spent--poor Aldous!--one of the most restless and
miserable nights of his life.

CHAPTER XI.

Marcella was sitting in a deep and comfortable chair at the open window
of Lady Winterbourne's drawing-room. The house--in James Street,
Buckingham Gate--looked out over the exercising ground of the great
barracks in front, and commanded the greenery of St. James's Park to the
left. The planes lining the barrack railings were poor, wilted things,
and London was as hot as ever. Still the charm of these open spaces of
sky and park, after the high walls and innumerable windows of Brown's
Buildings, was very great; Marcella wanted nothing more but to lie
still, to dally with a book, to dream as she pleased, and to be let
alone.

Lady Winterbourne and her married daughter, Lady Ermyntrude, were still
out, engaged in the innumerable nothings of the fashionable afternoon.
Marcella had her thoughts to herself.

But they were not of a kind that any one need have wished to share. In
the first place, she was tired of idleness. In the early days after Lady
Winterbourne had carried her off, the soft beds and sofas, the trained
service and delicate food of this small but luxurious house had been so
pleasant to her that she had scorned herself for a greedy Sybaritic
temper, delighted by any means to escape from plain living. But she had
been here a fortnight, and was now pinin