The nurse was standing by the window. She turned sharply on Joan’s entrance. Joan slipped the box into her hands. “Must you, dear?” she said. “Can’t you reconcile it to yourself—to go on with your work of mercy, of saving poor folks’ lives?”!

“It only came an hour or two ago,” her father explained. “If he wrote to you by the same post, you may have left before it arrived.” “She ought not to talk to more than one person at a time,” the nurse explained, with a shake of the head. She was a quiet, business-like woman. She would not express a definite opinion.

Facing the mirror of the days to come, she tried it on. It was going to hurt. There was no doubt of that. She saw the fatuous, approving face of the eternal Mrs. Phillips, thrust ever between them, against the background of that hideous furniture, of those bilious wall papers—the loneliness that would ever walk with her, sit down beside her in the crowded restaurant, steal up the staircase with her, creep step by step with her from room to room—the ever unsatisfied yearning for a tender word, a kindly touch. Yes, it was going to hurt. She blew out the candle and climbed into the big bed, feeling very lonesome as she used to when a child. It had not troubled her until to-night. Suddenly she sat up again. She needn’t be back in London before Tuesday evening, and to-day was only Friday. She would run down home and burst in upon her father. He would be so pleased to see her. 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.