ght, Letty, with the red volume of
Hans Andersen under her arm, passed out into the hall. It was not easy
to carry herself with the necessary nonchalance, but she got strength
by saying inwardly: "Here's where I begin to walk on blades." The
knowledge that she was doing it, and that she was doing it toward an
end, gave her a dignity of carriage which Allerton watched with
sharpened observation.

Reaching the little back spare room she found the door open, and
Steptoe sweeping up the hearth before a newly lighted fire. Beppo,
whose basket had been established here, jumped from his shelter to paw
up at her caressingly. With the hearth-brush in his hand Steptoe
raised himself to say:

"Madam'll excuse me, but I thought as the evenin' was chilly----"

"He doesn't want me to stay."

She brought out the fact abruptly, lifelessly, because she couldn't
keep it back. The calm she had been able to maintain downstairs was
breaking up, with a quivering of the lip and two rolling tears.

Slowly and absently Steptoe dusted his left hand with the hearth-brush
held in his right. "If madam's goin' to decide 'er life by what
another person wants she ain't never goin' to get nowhere."

There were tears now in the voice. "Yes, but when it's--_him_."

"'Im or anybody else, we all 'ave to fight for what we means to myke
of our own life. It's a poor gyme in which I don't plye my 'and for
all I think it'll win."

"Do you mean that I should--act independent?"

"'Aven't madam an independent life?"

"Havin' an independent life don't make it easier to stay where you're
not wanted."

"Oh, if madam's lookin' first for what's easy----"

"I'm not. I'm lookin' first for what he'll _like_."

Hanging the hearth-brush in its place he took the tongs to adjust a
smoking log. "I've been lookin' for what 'e'd like ever since 'e was
born; and now I see that gettin' so much of what 'e liked 'asn't been
good for 'im. If madam'd strike out on 'er own line, whether 'e liked
it or not, and keep at it till 'e 'ad to like it----"

"Oh, but when it's--" she sought for the right word--"when it's so
humiliatin'----"

"Humiliatin' things is not so 'ard to bear, once you've myde up your
mind as they're to be borne." He put up the tongs, to busy himself
with the poker. "Madam'll find that humiliation is a good deal like
that there quinine; bitter to the tyste, but strengthenin'. I've
swallered lots of it; and look at me to-dye."

"I know as well as he