ed, in
the same spirit of affection. It will perhaps settle your
immediate necessities. To-morrow morning I shall send for you, so
have all your things ready, and believe me.

"Yours affectionately,
"GEORGE BARTHOLOMEW."

She cried over the letter, the proud head drooped over it; bright tears
streamed from the grey eyes.

Could Hugh Alston have seen her now, her face softened by the gladness
and the gratitude that had come to her, he would have seen in her the
woman of his dreams.

The banknote would clear everything. She did not scruple to accept it in
the spirit of affection in which it was offered. It would have been
churlish and false pride to refuse.

He had said that he would send for her when the morning came; he had
taken it for granted that she would go, and there was no need to answer
the letter. And when the morning came she was ready and waiting, her
things packed, her last bill to Mrs. Wenham paid.

The maid came tapping on the door.

"Someone waiting for you, miss, in the drawing-room."

Joan went down. It would be the old fellow, the warm-hearted old man
himself come to fetch her! She entered the big ugly room, with its dingy
wall-paper and threadbare carpet, its oleographs in tarnished frames,
its ancient centre ottoman, its elderly piano and unsafe, uncertain
chairs. How she hated this room, where of evenings the 'paying guests'
distorted themselves.

But she came into it now eagerly, with bright eyes and flushed cheeks,
and hand held out, only to draw back with sudden chill.

It was Mr. Philip Slotman who rose from the ottoman.

"Joan, I've come to tell you I am sorry, sorry and ashamed," he said. "I
was mad. I want you to forgive me."

"There need be no talk of forgiveness," she said. "You are the type of
man one can perhaps forget--never forgive!"

He winced a little, and his face changed to a dusky red.

"I said more than I meant to say. But what I said, after all, was right
enough. I know more about you than I think you guess. I know about that
fellow, that--what's his name?--Alston--who came. I know why he came."

"You are a friend of his, perhaps? I am not surprised."

"I never saw him before in my life, but I know all about him--and
you--all the same. He was willing to act fairly to you after all, and--"

"What is this to do with you?" she asked.

"A lot!" he said thickly. "A lot! Look here!" He took another step
towards her. "Last night I behaved