ng left in
doubt. A telegram came first, and then a letter. 'Dearest, dearest,'
this ran, 'I cannot let you go away.' It was a horribly compromising
letter, but it came from a poor little woman who had fought long odds,
and who was often very tired, and who sat for the greater part of the
day making blouses for which she was seldom paid. Mrs. Avory was not a
strong woman, nor in any way a great-minded woman, but she was one who,
in spite of weakness and a good deal of silliness, clung almost
fiercely to the fact that she must be good, and who kept faithfully the
promises she had made to a wholly unworthy person in the village church
at home twelve years ago. Every word of the letter was an appeal to
her dear, dear Nigel to stay in England and not leave her alone. She
had so few friends and so little to look forward to except his Sunday
visits. And then this poor tear-blotched letter which was neither very
grammatical nor legibly written changed its tone suddenly, and Mrs.
Avory said that perhaps it was better that he should go. Everything
was very difficult, and it seemed that although his society was the one
thing that she loved in the world, perhaps the fact of seeing him made
things almost more difficult. Her husband, she heard, had been
watching her movements lately; they said he wanted to marry some one
else, so really and truly Nigel had better go, and if possible forget
all about her for ever.

Toffy finished reading the letter and groaned. 'Was she never to have
a good time!' he wondered, thinking of the dull room and the
half-finished blouses upon the table, the economical gas jets in the
fireplace in lieu of the glow of a bright fire, and the dingy paper on
the walls. The whole thing was too hard on her, he thought, and
everything in the world seemed to be against her.

Long ago, when he was little more than a boy, he had met Horace Avory
and his wife in an out-of-the-way fishing village in Wales. Avory's
treatment of the small timid woman had roused pity and resentment in
Toffy's mind. A student of character would have seen directly that a
woman with more power and strength of mind--a woman with a bit of the
bully in herself--who could have taken the upper hand with the big
red-faced tyrant, might have made a very fairly good imitation of a
gentleman, and perhaps even of a good husband, of Avory. But his
wife--timid, and all too gentle--could only wince under the things he
said, or let her big