ngs will be better to-morrow."

Miss Bacon stared at her teacup with hopeless eyes. "That is what I used
to think at first," she said, "to-morrow will be better than to-day--it
never has been yet."

She rose to go, and Joan, prompted by a sudden quick desire to help,
leant forward and caught hold of her coat. The tragedy of the withered
figure, the stupid, aimless face, struck her as the cruellest thing she
had yet seen in life. What were her own troubles compared to this
other's dull facing of loneliness, failure and death.

"You must cheer up, you really must," she begged; "and as for the money
part, let me pay down the rest of my fee now. I have got three pounds
out with me; do take it, please do, you see it really is yours."

Taking the money seemed to add an extra gloom to Miss Bacon's outlook;
none the less she did not require very much persuading, and Joan,
pressing it into her hand, piloted her across the road and saw her into
the Underground station.

It was the last glimpse she was to have of the quaint figure which had
crossed her life for so short a time, but that she did not realize. She
only knew that her heart ached because she had been able to do so little
to help, and because Miss Bacon's story had brought suddenly to her mind
a knowledge of how terribly hard life can be to those who are not strong
enough to stand against it.

True to her word, she arrived at Baker Street very early the next
morning and the momentous piece of typewriting was finished before Miss
Bacon's usual hour of arrival. Joan put it on the table with the old
lady's paper and went out to get some breakfast, as she had had to leave
Shamrock House before seven.

She was greeted on her return by the girl who had let her in on the
first night. There was a man with her who had taken possession of Miss
Bacon's chair and who was reading the paper morosely, both elbows on the
table.

He glanced up at Joan as she entered. "Is this Miss Bacon, by any
chance?" he asked, bringing out the words with a certain grim defiance.

Edith interrupted Joan's disclaimer by a shrill laugh. "Lor' bless you,
no, she is one of the pupils, same as me." She turned to Joan. "Did you
pay anything to join?" she asked. Joan resented the familiarity of her
tone. "Would have liked to have warned you the other night, but Bacon
was too nippy."

Joan flushed slightly. Disregarding the interruption she spoke quickly,
answering the man's question:

"Miss Bac