“I will stay with her for a little while,” she said. “Till I feel there is no more need. Then I must get back to work.” He looked straight into her eyes. “You are,” he said. “I have been reading your articles. They are splendid. I’m going to help.”!

He looked at her, and a flush passed over his boyish face. She had risen while he was speaking. She moved to him and laid her hands upon his shoulders.

It was vexing his having moved round the corner, into North Street. Why couldn’t the silly woman have been content where she was. Living under one roof, they could have seen one another as often as was needful without attracting attention. Now, she supposed, she would have to be more than ever the bosom friend of Mrs. Phillips—spend hours amid that hideous furniture, surrounded by those bilious wallpapers. Of course he could not come to her. She hoped he would appreciate the sacrifice she would be making for him. Fortunately Mrs. Phillips would give no trouble. She would not even understand. “You’ve been thinking,” Joan accused her. “What’s put all that into your head?” “The difficulty I have always been up against,” explained her father, “has been their suspicion. ‘What’s the cunning old rascal up to now? What’s his little game?’ That is always what I have felt they were thinking to themselves whenever I have wanted to do anything for them. It isn’t anything he says to them. It seems to be just he, himself.”