s me assurance. You are going straight
home? Then I will send for a cab."

In a few minutes the cab was ready at the gate. Mallard, resolved to
behave as though this were the most ordinary of visits, put on his hat
and led the way downstairs. They went out into the road, and then
Cecily turned to give him her hand. He looked at her, and for the first
time spoke on an impulse.

"It's a long drive. Will you let me come a part of the way with you?"

"I shall be very glad."

They entered the hansom, and drove off.

The few words that passed between them were with reference to Mrs.
Lessingham. Mallard inquired about her plans for the summer, and Cecily
answered as far as she was able. When they had reached the
neighbourhood of Regent's Park, he asked permission to stop the cab and
take his leave; Cecily acquiesced. From the pavement he shook hands
with her, seeing her face but dimly by the lamplight; she said only
"Thank you," and the cab bore her away.

Carried onward, with closed eyes as if in self-abandonment to her fate,
Cecily thought with more repugnance of home the nearer she drew to it.
It was not likely that Reuben had returned; there would be again an
endless evening of misery in solitude. When the cab was at the end of
Eel size Park, she called the driver's attention, and bade him drive on
to a certain other address, that of the Denyers. Zillah's letter of
appeal, all but forgotten, had suddenly come to mind and revived her
sympathies. Was there not some resemblance between her affliction and
that of poor Madeline? Her own life had suffered a paralysis; helpless
amid the ruin of her hopes, she could look forward to nothing but long
endurance.

On arriving, she asked for Mrs. Denyer, but that lady was from home.
Miss Zillah, then. She was led into the front room on the ground floor,
and waited there for several minutes.

At length Zillah came in hurriedly, excusing herself for being so long.
This youngest of the Denyers was now a tall awkward, plain girl, with a
fixed expression of trouble; in talking, she writhed her fingers
together and gave other signs of nervousness; she spoke in quick, short
sentences, often breaking off in embarrassment. During the years of her
absence from home as a teacher, Zillah had undergone a spiritual
change; relieved from the necessity of sustaining the Denyer tone, she
had by degrees ceased to practise affectation with herself, and one by
one the characteristics of an "eman