'll come down again I'll come down
whenever you want me." Lise suddenly seized her and clung to her,
sobbing. For a while Janet submitted, and then, kissing her, gently
detached herself. She felt, indeed, pity for Lise, but something
within her seemed to have hardened--something that pity could not melt,
possessing her and thrusting heron to action. She knew not what action.
So strong was this thing that it overcame and drove off the evil spirits
of that darkened house as she descended the stairs to join Mr. Tiernan,
who opened the door for her to pass out. Once in the street, she
breathed deeply of the sunlit air. Nor did she observe Mr. Tiernan's
glance of comprehension.... When they arrived at the North Station he
said:--"You'll be wanting a bite of dinner, Miss Janet," and as she
shook her head he did not press her to eat. He told her that a train for
Hampton left in ten minutes. "I think I'll stay in Boston the rest of
the day, as long as I'm here," he added.

She remembered that she had not thanked him, she took his hand, but he
cut her short.

"It's glad I was to help you," he assured her. "And if there's anything
more I can do, Miss Janet, you'll be letting me know--you'll call on
Johnny Tiernan, won't you?"

He left her at the gate. He had intruded with no advice, he had offered
no comment that she had come downstairs alone, without Lise. His
confidence in her seemed never to have wavered. He had respected,
perhaps partly imagined her feelings, and in spite of these now a sense
of gratitude to him stole over her, mitigating the intensity of their
bitterness. Mr. Tiernan alone seemed stable in a chaotic world. He was a
man.

No sooner was she in the train, however, than she forgot Mr. Tiernan
utterly. Up to the present the mental process of dwelling upon her own
experience of the last three months had been unbearable, but now she was
able to take a fearful satisfaction in the evolving of parallels
between her case and Lise's. Despite the fact that the memories she had
cherished were now become hideous things, she sought to drag them forth
and compare them, ruthlessly, with what must have been the treasures
of Lise. Were her own any less tawdry? Only she, Janet, had been the
greater fool of the two, the greater dupe because she had allowed
herself to dream, to believe that what she had done had been for love,
for light! because she had not listened to the warning voice within her!
It had always been on the l