it. She, for one, would defy it. In that
reflection she found a certain fierce joy. And she might lie in bed if
she wished--how often had she longed to! But she could not. The room was
cold, appallingly empty and silent as she hurried into her clothes. The
dining-room lamp was lighted, the table set, her mother was bending over
the stove when she reached the kitchen. After the pretence of breakfast
was gone through Janet sought relief in housework, making her bed,
tidying her room. It was odd, this morning, how her notice of little,
familiar things had the power to add to her pain, brought to mind
memories become excruciating as she filled the water pitcher from the
kitchen tap she found herself staring at the nick broken out of it
when Lise had upset it. She recalled Lise's characteristically flippant
remark. And there was the streak in the wall-paper caused one night by
the rain leaking through the roof. After the bed was made and the room
swept she stood a moment, motionless, and then, opening the drawer in
the wardrobe took from it the rose which she had wrapped in tissue paper
and hidden there, and with a perverse desire as it were to increase the
bitterness consuming her, to steep herself in pain, she undid the parcel
and held the withered flower to her face. Even now a fragrance, faint
yet poignant, clung to it.... She wrapped it up again, walked to the
window, hesitated, and then with a sudden determination to destroy this
sole relic of her happiness went to the kitchen and flung it into the
stove. Hannah, lingering over her morning task of cleaning, did not seem
to notice the act. Janet turned to her.

"I think I'll go out for a while, mother," she said.

"You'd ought to," Hannah replied. "There's no use settin' around here."

The silence of the flat was no longer to be endured. And Janet, putting
on her coat and hat, descended the stairs. Not once that morning had
her mother mentioned Lise; nor had she asked about her own plans--about
Ditmar. This at least was a relief; it was the question she had feared
most. In the street she met the postman.

"I have a letter for you, Miss Janet," he said. And on the pink envelope
he handed her, in purple ink, she recognized the unformed, childish
handwriting of Lise. "There's great doings down at the City Hall," the
postman added "the foreigners are holding mass meetings there." Janet
scarcely heard him as she tore open the envelope. "Dear Janet," the
letter ran. "The d