y occasion
when Traill had to be out for the evening--at a Law Courts dinner
or some such public function, but she never met him.

"Why doesn't he want to meet your friends?" Janet once asked her.

"I have only one," Sally had replied, laughing.

"Well--why won't he meet me? I suppose you've shown him that
photograph you've got of me? It's enough to put any man off."

"I shall never take any notice when you talk like that," said Sally.

"Very well--don't! But why is it?"

"I think I know--but I'm afraid you'll be angry."

"No, I shan't. Come along--out with it!"

"Well--I told him once--that first day I dined with him--that I
should love you two to meet. I said I'd love to hear you argue--"

"Oh, God!" exclaimed Janet. She cast her eyes up to the ceiling. "That
did it! What did he say?"

"He said he could love a woman, but he couldn't argue with her."

"Yes--of course he did. A woman has to be confoundedly pretty before
a man's going to let her have a point of view. Even then, if she isn't
fairly cute, it's his own he gives her. Then I suppose when you came
to live here, he saw my photograph?"

"I suppose he--yes, I think he did. I showed it to him; or he asked
who it was."

Janet broke out into a peal of harsh--strident laughter.

"It's a wonder he risks your bringing me as near as the next floor,"
she had said. "Lord! A woman with a face like mine, who argues! God
help us!"

But once she had understood that point, Janet had never alluded to
it again; had made no effort to catch a glimpse of the man who so
filled Sally's life. So much, in fact, had she endeavoured to avoid
their contact that, on one occasion, when she and Sally had been
climbing up to the second floor, and the door of his room was opened,
through which his voice had sounded, calling to Sally, she had run
hurriedly up the stairs out of sight, her heart thumping with
excitement when he had shouted out--

"Who the devil's that?"

The inclination to shout back--"What the devil's that to you?" she
had clipped on the tip of her tongue; but only for Sally's sake.

On this evening, then, that the settlement was drawn up, Sally had
slowly climbed the stairs to the floor above, and once in her little
sitting-room, with the door closed behind her, she had seated herself
upon the settee near the fireplace and gazed into the cheerless,
unlighted fire with dry and tearless eyes.

To her, the shadow of the end fell on everything. Just a little