nies. A telegram fetched me home
unexpectedly just as I was entering for my degree. I found my father
seriously ill and almost broken-hearted. I stayed with him, and in a
fortnight he died. There was just enough--barely enough--to pay what
he owed, and nothing left of his small fortune. His brother, my
uncle, came down to the funeral, and I regret to say that even then
I quarreled with him. He made use of language concerning my father
and his folly which I could not tolerate. My father was very simple
and very credulous and very honorable. He was just the sort of man
who becomes the prey of these wretched circular-mongering sharks.
What he did, he did for my sake. My uncle spoke of him with
contempt, spoke as though he were charged with the care of me
through my father's foolishness. I am afraid I made no allowance for
my uncle's peculiar temperament. The moment the funeral was over, I
turned him out of the house. I have no other relatives. I came to
London sooner than remain down in the country and be found a
position out of charity, which is, I suppose, what would have
happened. I took a room and looked for work. Naturally, I was glad
to get anything. I used to make about forty calls a day, till I
called at your husband's office in Tooley Street and got a
situation."

She nodded.

"I thought it was something like that," she remarked. "Supposing I
had not happened to discover you, I wonder how long you would have
gone on?"

"Not much longer," he admitted. "To tell you the truth, I should
have enlisted but for that poor little girl whom I brought down with
me this afternoon."

His tone had softened. There was the slightest trace of a frown upon
her face as she looked along the riverside.

"But tell me," she asked, "what is your connection with her?"

"One of sympathy and friendliness only," he answered. "I never saw
her till I took the cheapest room I could find at the top of a gaunt
house near the Strand. The rest of the top floor is occupied by this
girl and her uncle. He is a socialist agitator, engaged on one of
the trades' union papers,--a nervous, unbalanced creature, on fire
with strange ideas,--the worst companion in the world for any one.
Sometimes he is away for days together. Sometimes, when he is at
home, he talks like a prophet, half mad, half inspired, as though he
were tugging at the pillars which support the world. The girl and he
are alone as I am alone, and there is something which brings peop