e Bank as to how her money matters stood, or had they
shut her so completely out of their lives that even that was of no
interest to them? Miss Abercrombie wrote fairly regularly, but though
she could give Joan news of the home people she had to admit that Aunt
Janet never mentioned or alluded to her niece in any way.

"She is harder than I thought she could be," wrote Miss Abercrombie; "or
is it perhaps that you have killed her heart?"

Once Joan's pride fell so low that she found herself writing Aunt Janet
a pathetic, vague appeal to be allowed to creep back into the shelter of
the old life. But she tore the letter up in the morning and scattered
its little pieces along the gutter of Digby Street. Digby Street was
sucking into its undercurrents her youth, her cheerfulness, her hope;
only pride was left, she must make a little struggle to hold on to
pride, and then news came from Miss Abercrombie that Aunt Janet had been
ill and that the Rutherfords had gone abroad. Apart from her fruitless
journeys in search of work, her days held nothing. She so dreaded the
atmosphere of Shamrock House that very often she would have to walk
herself tired out of all feeling before she could go back there;
sometimes she cried night after night, weak, stupid tears, shut up in
the dreariness of her little room, and very often her thoughts turned
back to Gilbert--the comfort of their little flat, the theatres, the
suppers, the dances and the passion-held nights when he had loved her.
More and more she thought of Gilbert as the dreariness of Digby Street
closed round her days.

If her baby had lived, would life have been easier for her, or would it
only have meant--as she had first believed in her days of panic that
it would mean--an added hardship, a haunting shame? It was the lack of
love in her life that left so aching a void, the fact that apparently no
one cared or heeded what became of her. The baby would at least have
brought love to her, in its little hands, in its weak strength that
looked to her for shelter.

"I should be happier," she said once stormily to Rose, "if I could have
a cat to keep. I think I shall buy a kitten."

The other girl had looked at her, smiling dryly. "Pets are strictly
against the rules in Shamrock House," she reminded her.

It was in one of her very despondent moods that Joan first met the young
man with blue eyes. She never knew him by any name, and their
acquaintance, or whatever it could be calle