“And you must not despair,” she continued; “because in the end it will seem to you that you have failed. It is the fallen that win the victories.” “I called at your diggings,” he said. “I had to go through London. They told me you had started. It is good of you.”!

“I want your love,” she said to him one day. “It helps me. I used to think it was selfish of me to take it, knowing I could never return it—not that love. But I no longer feel that now. Your love seems to me a fountain from which I can drink without hurting you.” They discussed life on two thousand a year; the problems it would present; and Mrs. Phillips became more cheerful. Joan laid herself out to be friendly. She hoped to establish an influence over Mrs. Phillips that should be for the poor lady’s good; and, as she felt instinctively, for poor Phillips’s also. It was not an unpleasing face. Underneath the paint, it was kind and womanly. Joan was sure he would like it better clean. A few months’ attention to diet would make a decent figure of her and improve her wind. Joan watched her spreading the butter a quarter of an inch thick upon her toast and restrained with difficulty the impulse to take it away from her. And her clothes! Joan had seen guys carried through the streets on the fifth of November that were less obtrusive.

“Are you, too, a Christian?” he asked of Joan. “My first public appearance,” explained Mrs. Denton. “I teased my father into taking me with him. We represented Great Britain and Ireland. I suppose I’m the only one left.” Flossie came up at the same instant. She wanted to introduce him to Miss Lavery, who had just arrived.