en Glynn said to himself. "That girl's face
has been an object lesson stronger than any words. She understands the
difference."

A moment later he met Pixie's eyes, and realised afresh the truth of his
diagnosis; but she drew herself up with a sort of defiance, and turned
sharply aside.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the train returning to town Pixie sat mute and pallid, and was waited
upon assiduously by her sister and brother. To them it seemed natural
enough that the poor child should collapse after the strain of parting.
Only one person understood the deepest reason of her distress. He
offered none of the conventional words of sympathy, and forebore to echo
Esmeralda's rosy pictures of the future. It brought another pang to
Pixie's sore heart to realise that he _understood_. "But I will be
true," she repeated to herself with insistent energy; "I will be true.
I have given my word." She felt very tired and spent as she lay back in
the corner of her cushioned seat. On heart and brain was an
unaccustomed weight; her very limbs felt heavy and inert, as if the
motive power had failed. Virtue had gone out of her. At the sight of
that anguished face, the years of Pixie's untroubled girlhood had come
to an end. Henceforth she was a woman, carrying her own burden. "But I
will be true," she repeated gallantly; "I will be true!"

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

PIXIE SEEKS ADVICE.

A tall young man lay stretched upon a narrow bed which filled an entire
wall of the one and only sitting-room in a diminutive London flat. On
the wall opposite was a fireplace and a small sideboard; against the
third wall stood a couple of upright chairs. In the centre of the room
stood a table. A wicker arm-chair did duty for an invalid tray, and
held a selection of pipes, books, and writing materials, also a bottle
of medicine, and a plate of unappetising biscuits.

The young man took up one of the biscuits, nibbled a crumb from the
edge, and aimed the remainder violently at a picture at the other end of
the room. It hit, and the biscuit broke into pieces, but the glass
remained intact, a result which seemed far from satisfactory to the
onlooker. He fumbled impatiently for matches with which to light his
pipe, touched the box with the tips of his outstretched fingers, and
jerked it impatiently, whereupon it rolled on to the floor to a spot
just a couple of inches beyond the utmost stre