“Why can’t you help him in his own house, instead of wandering all about the country?” Flossie wanted to know. They kissed good night, and Joan went up to her own room. She found it just as she had left it. A bunch of roses stood upon the dressing-table. Her father would never let anyone cut his roses but himself.!

Madge had asked Joan to come a little earlier so that they could have a chat together before the others arrived. “It’s the thing that gives me greatest hope,” she continued. “The childishness of men and women. It means that the world is still young, still teachable.”

Mary lived in a tiny house behind a strip of garden. It stood in a narrow side street between two public-houses, and was covered with ivy. It had two windows above and a window and a door below. The upstairs rooms belonged to the churchwardens and were used as a storehouse for old parish registers, deemed of little value. Mary Stopperton and her bedridden husband lived in the two rooms below. Mary unlocked the door, and Joan passed in and waited. Mary lit a candle that was standing on a bracket and turned to lead the way. “I know you are only doing it because you sympathize with his aims and want him to win,” acknowledged the good lady. “But I can’t help feeling grateful to you. I don’t feel how useless I am while I’ve got you to run to.” “And I want him, if that’s any consolation to you,” Joan answered with a short laugh. It wasn’t much of a confession. The child was cute enough to have found that out for herself. “Only you see I can’t have him. And there’s an end of it.”