recollections of
Julian's courtship, and began to realise that her efforts during that
time had been directed thoughtlessly towards enlarging her influence
over him. If, indeed, Julian owed this change in his condition to her,
then Sir John was right, and she had employed her influence to his
hurt. And it only made her fault the greater that Julian was himself
unconscious of his degradation. She commenced to feel a personal
responsibility commanding her to rescue him from his slough, which
was increased moreover by a fear that her persuasions might prove
ineffectual. For Julian's manner pointed now to an utter absence of
feeling so far as she was concerned.

At last Julian came out to her. "You will leave here," she cried
impulsively. "You will come back to us, to your friends!"

"Never," he answered firmly.

"You must," she pleaded; "you said you owed it all to me."

"Yes."

"Well, don't you see? If you stay here, I can never forgive myself; I
shall have ruined your life."

"Ruined it?" Julian asked in a tone of wonder. "You have made it." He
stopped and looked at Lady Tamworth in perplexity. The same perplexity
was stamped upon her face. "We are at cross-purposes, I think," he
continued. "My rooms are close here. Let me give you some tea, and
explain to you that you have no cause to blame yourself."

Lady Tamworth assented with some relief. The speech had an odd
civilised flavour which contrasted pleasantly with what she had
imagined of his mode of life.

They crossed the road and turned into a narrow side-street. Julian
halted before a house of a slovenly exterior, and opened the door. A
bare rickety staircase rose upwards from their feet. Fairholm closed
the door behind Lady Tamworth, struck a match (for it was quite dark
within this passage), and they mounted to the fourth and topmost
floor. They stopped again upon a little landing in front of a second
door. A wall-paper of a cheap and offensive pattern, which had here
and there peeled from the plaster, added, Lady Tamworth observed, a
paltry air of tawdriness to the poverty of the place. Julian fumbled
in his pocket for a key, unlocked the door, and stepped aside for his
companion to enter. Following her in, he lit a pair of wax candles
on the mantelpiece and a brass lamp in the corner of the room. Lady
Tamworth fancied that unawares she had slipped into fairyland;
so great was the contrast between this retreat and the sordid
surroundings amidst which i