nd she
came in and shut the door.

"Bless my soul!" Johnny said; "bless my soul! You're home again!"

"On my way home; I can't get to Marbridge to-night very comfortably,
and I wanted to see you, so here I am. I have arranged with your
landlady to let me have a room."

Mr. Gillat appeared quite overcome with joy and surprise, and it
seemed to Julia, nervousness too. He led her to a chair; "Won't you
sit down?" he said, placing it so that it commanded a view of the
window and nothing else.

Julia sat down; she did not need to look at the room; she had already
mastered most of its details. When she first came in she had seen that
it was small and poor--a back bedroom, nothing more; an iron bed, not
too tidy, stood in one corner, a washstand, with dirty water in the
basin, in another. There was a painted chest of drawers opposite the
window; one leg was missing, its place being supplied by a pile of old
school-books; the top was adorned with a piece of newspaper in lieu of
a cover, and one of the drawers stood partly open; no human efforts
could get it shut, so Mr. Gillat's wardrobe was exposed to the public
gaze--if the public happened to look that way. Julia did not; nor did
she look towards the fire-place, where a very large towel-horse with a
very small towel upon it acted as a stove ornament--plain proof that
fires were unknown there. She looked across Mr. Gillat's cheap lamp
to the window and the vista of chimney pots, which were very well in
view, for the blind refused to come down and only draped the upper
half of the window in a drooping fashion.

Johnny stood against the chest of drawers, striving vainly to push the
refractory drawer shut, although he knew by experience it was quite
impossible. She could see him without turning her head; he was
shabbier than ever; even his tie--his one extravagance used to be gay
ties--was shabby, and his shoes would hardly keep on his feet. His
round pink face was still round and pink; he did not look exactly
older, though his grizzled little moustache was greyer, only somehow
more puzzled and hurt by the ways of fate. Julia knew that that was
the way he would age; experience would never teach him anything,
although, as she suddenly realised, it had been trying lately.

She turned away from the window; "I have left my luggage at the
station," she said; "I got out what I wanted in the waiting-room and
brought it along in a parcel. I think I'll take it to my room now, if
y