dear young gentleman, heaven be praised! and she
would break the awful news to him, very gradually. If not, there was
another "family" to be solaced; "I'm a mother myself, Mrs. Noaks"...

The sitting-room door was closed. Twice did Mrs. Batch tap on the panel,
receiving no answer. She went in, gazed around in the dimness, sighed
deeply, and struck a match. Conspicuous on the table lay a piece of
paper. She bent to examine it. A piece of lined paper, torn from an
exercise book, it was neatly inscribed with the words "What is Life
without Love?" The final word and the note of interrogation were
somewhat blurred, as by a tear. The match had burnt itself out. The
landlady lit another, and read the legend a second time, that she might
take in the full pathos of it. Then she sat down in the arm-chair. For
some minutes she wept there. Then, having no more, tears, she went out
on tip-toe, closing the door very quietly.

As she descended the last flight of stairs, her daughter had just shut
the front-door, and was coming along the hall.

"Poor Mr. Noaks--he's gone," said the mother.

"Has he?" said Katie listlessly.

"Yes he has, you heartless girl. What's that you've got in your hand?
Why, if it isn't the black-leading! And what have you been doing with
that?"

"Let me alone, mother, do," said poor Katie. She had done her lowly
task. She had expressed her mourning, as best she could, there where she
had been wont to express her love.

XXI

And Zuleika? She had done a wise thing, and was where it was best that
she should be.

Her face lay upturned on the water's surface, and round it were the
masses of her dark hair, half floating, half submerged. Her eyes were
closed, and her lips were parted. Not Ophelia in the brook could have
seemed more at peace.

"Like a creature native and indued
Unto that element,"
tranquil Zuleika lay.

Gently to and fro her tresses drifted on the water, or under the water
went ever ravelling and unravelling. Nothing else of her stirred.

What to her now the loves that she had inspired and played on? the lives
lost for her? Little thought had she now of them. Aloof she lay.

Steadily rising from the water was a thick vapour that turned to dew on
the window-pane. The air was heavy with scent of violets. These are the
flowers of mourning; but their scent here and now signified nothing; for
Eau de Violettes was the bath-essence that Zuleika always had.

The bath-roo