ckney accent. Philip asked him to come in. He cast sidelong glances
round the studio while Philip gave him details of the accident and told
him what he had done.

"I needn't see her, need I?" asked Albert Price. "My nerves aren't very
strong, and it takes very little to upset me."

He began to talk freely. He was a rubber-merchant, and he had a wife and
three children. Fanny was a governess, and he couldn't make out why she
hadn't stuck to that instead of coming to Paris.

"Me and Mrs. Price told her Paris was no place for a girl. And there's no
money in art--never 'as been."

It was plain enough that he had not been on friendly terms with his
sister, and he resented her suicide as a last injury that she had done
him. He did not like the idea that she had been forced to it by poverty;
that seemed to reflect on the family. The idea struck him that possibly
there was a more respectable reason for her act.

"I suppose she 'adn't any trouble with a man, 'ad she? You know what I
mean, Paris and all that. She might 'ave done it so as not to disgrace
herself."

Philip felt himself reddening and cursed his weakness. Price's keen little
eyes seemed to suspect him of an intrigue.

"I believe your sister to have been perfectly virtuous," he answered
acidly. "She killed herself because she was starving."

"Well, it's very 'ard on her family, Mr. Carey. She only 'ad to write to
me. I wouldn't have let my sister want."

Philip had found the brother's address only by reading the letter in which
he refused a loan; but he shrugged his shoulders: there was no use in
recrimination. He hated the little man and wanted to have done with him as
soon as possible. Albert Price also wished to get through the necessary
business quickly so that he could get back to London. They went to the
tiny room in which poor Fanny had lived. Albert Price looked at the
pictures and the furniture.

"I don't pretend to know much about art," he said. "I suppose these
pictures would fetch something, would they?"

"Nothing," said Philip.

"The furniture's not worth ten shillings."

Albert Price knew no French and Philip had to do everything. It seemed
that it was an interminable process to get the poor body safely hidden
away under ground: papers had to be obtained in one place and signed in
another; officials had to be seen. For three days Philip was occupied from
morning till night. At last he and Albert Price followed the hearse to the
cemetery a