has gone all round the place like
lightning. They aren't fond of you because they hate me and we are
friends. Yesterday one of them took the story to Miss Nigel and she is
going to ask you to leave."

"What story?" asked Joan; she had not followed the other's swift
deduction.

Rose lit a cigarette and held out the case to Joan. "Have one," she
said, "and come and sit down. As I said before, I am not asking for
personal history, I am telling you the facts as they affect this place.
They say you were to have had a baby, and you are not married."

She shrugged her shoulders and sank into a chair.

"You mean," whispered Joan, "that the nurse told them that?"

"I suppose so," Rose admitted; "anyway, Miss Nigel spoke of it to me
to-day. She is not a bad sort, Miss Nigel, she was very kind to me once,
but she is going to tell you to go."

"What have you thought of it?" asked Joan.

"I don't think about other people's affairs," Rose answered. "Come and
sit down, I have got some jam for you after the powder, for I believe I
have found a job for you. But first you must move into diggings, these
clubs are all in a league, every one of them will be shut to you."

"You are not bothering to ask if it is true," said Joan. She moved
forward and sat down, her hands clenched on her lap. "I suppose----"

Rose interrupted, putting a swift hand on hers. "Don't," she said,
"don't deny it or tell me the truth, whichever you were thinking of
doing. It does not matter to me. Because I like you I have interfered as
much as I have so that you may be prepared for Miss Nigel's attack." She
smiled. "It will be an attack too--having a baby and no husband to
people like Miss Nigel is worse than any criminal offence."

"Yes," Joan admitted. A vision of Aunt Janet's horror-stricken face came
across her mind. "When I heard that it had been killed in the accident,
I was glad, glad. I had not got the courage to go on and brave it out. I
was glad to think that I could start life again, that no one would know
or look at me like the people at home had looked at me when they knew.
And now----"

"And now?" Rose repeated; she was studying Joan's face with her eyes
half closed, a peculiar trick she had when her thoughts were unpleasant.

"And now it doesn't seem worth while going on any longer," Joan burst
forth. "There must be other lives that are better worth living than
this. Do you know that for the last ten days I have made fifteen
shillings a