and the
returned money and had understood what she meant. Perhaps even he had
repented as much as she, long before he got back home.

Or perhaps he was still abroad! That would be best of all, if she could
only be sure that the sea was still dividing them.

Five days after Nicholas was due to return Mrs. Ledley spoke of him.

"He'll never come back, Faith." There was triumphant thankfulness in her
voice. "Somehow I felt all along that he would never come back."

Faith could not answer. Though her fear had decreased it was not yet
dead, and only last night she had dreamed of the Beggar Man, dreamed
that she was on one side of a locked door on which he knocked, knocked
ceaselessly. It was early evening, and Faith had come home from work to
find Mrs. Ledley dressed to go out.

"You won't be long, mother, will you?" she urged. She dreaded being
alone in the house. Though it was early evening, the twins were in bed
and asleep, and everything seemed very still.

"I shan't be long," her mother answered, "but I must have a breath of
air. The house has stifled me all day. I can't breathe at all
sometimes."

Faith watched her down the street and went back indoors.

And Mrs. Ledley had not been gone more than half an hour, when there was
a great knocking at the outer door. Shaking in every limb, Faith went to
open it. A strange woman stood there, and down at the gate was a little
crowd and a policeman. The strange woman put kind arms round the girl's
shrinking figure and told her as gently as she could that something
terrible had happened, but that she must try to be brave and----

"Mother!" said Faith. She broke away like a mad thing from the arms that
would have held her and rushed to the gate. She gave one look at the
white face of the woman they were carrying home and screamed, hiding her
face with distraught hands.

Mrs. Ledley was dead. She had been walking along quite naturally, so
they said, and suddenly had been seen to fall.

There was nothing to be done. Hard work and sorrow and bitterness had
taken their toll of her strength and ended her life.

Faith could not shed a tear. After that first wild scream she had been
silent. She went to the room where the twins lay sleeping and crouched
down beside them, desperately holding a chubby hand of each.

Downstairs a kindly neighbour was in charge of the house; presently she
came upstairs to Faith and bent over her.

"A gentleman, dearie. I told him you couldn'