from my appearance, but that did not matter to me
now--the only eyes I wished to look well in being down in the Antarctic
seas.

Then I tried to think of practical matters--how I was to live in London
and how, in particular, I was to meet the situation that was before me.
Surely never did a more helpless innocent confront such a serious
problem. I was a woman, and for more than a year I had been a wife, but
I had no more experience of the hard facts of material existence than a
child.

I thought first of the bank-book which my father had sent me with
authority to draw on his account. But it was then nine o'clock, the
banks were closed for the day, and I knew enough of the world to see
that if I attempted to cash a cheque in the morning my whereabouts would
he traced. That must never happen, I must hide myself from everybody;
therefore my bank-book was useless.

"Quite useless," I thought, throwing it aside like so much waste paper.

I thought next of my jewels. But there I encountered a similar
difficulty. The jewels which were really mine, having been bought by
myself, had been gambled away by my husband at Monte Carlo. What
remained were the family jewels which had come to me as Lady Raa; but
that was a name I was never more to bear, a person I was never more to
think about, so I could not permit myself to take anything that belonged
to her.

The only thing left to me was my money. I had always kept a good deal
of it about me, although the only use I had had for it was to put it in
the plate at church, and to scatter it with foolish prodigality to the
boys who tossed somersaults behind the carriage in the road.

Now I found it all over my room--in my purse, in various drawers, and on
the toilet-tray under my dressing-glass. Gathered together it counted up
to twenty-eight pounds. I owed four pounds to Price, and having set them
aside, I saw that I had twenty-four pounds left in notes, gold, and
silver.

Being in the literal and unconventional sense utterly ignorant of the
value of sixpence, I thought this a great sum, amply sufficient for all
my needs, or at least until I secured employment--for I had from the
first some vague idea of earning my own living.

"Martin would like that," I told myself, lifting my head with a thrill
of pride.

Then I began to gather up the treasures which were inexpressibly more
dear to me than all my other possessions.

One of them was a little miniature of my mother which Fa