. "Please, sir--could you--couldn't you do me a favour?--Nothing
about money, sir."

"Well, if I can," he said kindly.

"Couldn't you just play _Good-night and Good-bye_, for the last time?
You needn't sing it--only play it."

"Why, what an odd girl you are!" he said, with a strange, spasmodic
laugh. "Why, certainly! I'll do both, if it will give you any pleasure."

And, releasing her hands, he sat down to the piano, and played the
introduction softly. He felt a nervous thrill going down his spine as he
plunged into the mawkish words. And when he came to the refrain, he had
an uneasy sense that Mary Ann was crying--he dared not look at her. He
sang on bravely:

"Kiss me, good-night, dear love,
Dream of the old delight;
My spirit is summoned above,
Kiss me, dear love, good-night."

He couldn't go through another verse--he felt himself all a-quiver, every
nerve shattered. He jumped up. Yes, his conjecture had been right.
Mary Ann was crying. He laughed spasmodically again. The thought had
occurred to him how vain Peter would be if he could know the effect of
his commonplace ballad.

"There, I'll kiss you too, dear!" he said huskily, still smiling.
"That'll be for the last time."

Their lips met, and then Mary Ann seemed to fade out of the room in a
blur of mist.

An instant after there was a knock at the door.

"Forgot her parcels after a last good-bye," thought Lancelot, and
continued to smile at the comicality of the new episode.

He cleared his throat.

"Come in," he cried, and then he saw that the parcels were gone, too, and
it must be Rosie.

But it was merely Mary Ann.

"I forgot to tell you, Mr. Lancelot," she said--her accents were almost
cheerful--"that I'm going to church to-morrow morning."

"To church!" he echoed.

"Yes, I haven't been since I left the village, but missus says I ought to
go in case the vicar asks me what church I've been going to."

"I see," he said, smiling on.

She was closing the door when it opened again, just revealing Mary Ann's
face.

"Well?" he said, amused.

"But I'll do your boots all the same, Mr. Lancelot." And the door closed
with a bang.

They did not meet again. On the Monday afternoon the vicar duly came and
took Mary Ann away. All Baker's Terrace was on the watch, for her story
had now had time to spread. The weather remained bright. It was cold,
but the sky was blue. Mary Ann had borne up wonderfully, but she burst