I will do whatever you wish. After
your kindness to me, you have the right to dispose of my doings. I shall
be glad to do as you wish."

"Well," said she, composedly, "I wish you to write a letter to your
parents, which I will dictate; of course they must be consulted. Then,
if they consent, I intend to provide you with the means of carrying on
your studies in Elberthal under Herr von Francius."

I almost gasped. Miss Hallam, who had been a by-word in Skernford, and
in our own family, for eccentricity and stinginess, was indeed heaping
coals of fire upon my head. I tried, weakly and ineffectually, to
express my gratitude to her, and at last said:

"You may trust me never to abuse your kindness, Miss Hallam."

"I have trusted you ever since you refused Sir Peter Le Marchant, and
were ready to leave your home to get rid of him," said she, with grim
humor.

She then told me that she had settled everything with von Francius, even
that I was to remove to different lodgings, more suited for a solitary
student than Frau Steinmann's busy house.

"And," she added, "I shall ask Doctor Mittendorf to have an eye to you
now and then, and to write to me of how you go on."

I could not find many words in which to thank her. The feeling that I
was not going, did not need to leave it all, filled my heart with a
happiness as deep as it was unfounded and unreasonable.

At my next lesson von Francius spoke to me of the future.

"I want you to be a real student--no play one," said he, "or you will
never succeed. And for that reason I told Miss Hallam that you had
better leave this house. There are too many distractions. I am going to
put you in a very different place."

"Where? In which part of the town?"

"Wehrhahn, 39, is the address," said he.

I was not quite sure where that was, but did not ask further, for I was
occupied in helping Miss Hallam, and wished to be with her as much as I
could before she left.

The day of parting came, as come it must. Miss Hallam was gone. I had
cried, and she had maintained the grim silence which was her only way of
expressing emotion.

She was going back home to Skernford, to blindness, now known to be
inevitable, to her saddened, joyless life. I was going to remain in
Elberthal--for what? When I look back I ask myself--was I not as blind
as she, in truth? In the afternoon of the day of Miss Hallam's
departure, I left Frau Steinmann's house. Clara promised to come and
see me sometimes.