her throat felt parched.

She pushed back the untasted dish on the breakfast table. Her head
between her hands, she tried to think. At intervals she poured out cups
of tea and drank them off quickly.

Snoo and Poo, after vainly trying to induce her to play with them, lay
in a heap in an armchair snuffling as they slept.

The better she realised her position the greater grew her fears. Once
more she was the cork tossed in the storm; and yet, rudderless, she must
navigate into the harbour of liberty. If Cairns had lived and she had
seen her power over him wane, she would have taken steps; she did not
know what steps, but felt she surely would have done something. But
Cairns was dead; in twenty minutes she had passed from comparative
security into the region where thorns are many and roses few.

Poor old Tom! She felt a tiny pang; surely this concern with herself
when his body still lay unburied was selfish, ugly. But, pooh! why make
any bones about it? As Cairns had said himself, he liked to see her
beautiful, happy, well clad. His gifts to her were gifts to himself: she
was merely his vicar.

Victoria drank some more cold tea. Good or bad, Cairns belonged to the
past and the past has no virtues. None, at any rate, for those whose
present is a wind-swept table-land. Men must come and go, drink to the
full of the cup and pay richly for every sip, so that she might be free,
hold it no longer to their lips. There was no time to waste, for already
she was some hours older; some of those hours which might have been
transmuted into gold, that saving gold. She must take steps.

The 'steps to be taken,' a comforting sentence, were not easy to evolve.
But another comforting catch ward, 'reviewing the situation,' saved her
from perplexity. She went into the little boudoir and took out her two
pass books. The balance seemed agreeably fat, but she did not allow
herself to be deluded; she checked off the debit side with the foils of
her cheque book and found that two of the cheques had not been
presented. These she deducted, but the result was not unsatisfactory;
she had exactly three hundred pounds in one bank and a few shillings
over fifty pounds in the other. Three hundred and fifty pounds. Not so
bad. She had done pretty well in these nine months. Of course that
banker's order of Cairns would be stopped. She could hardly expect the
executors to allow it to stand. Thus her capital was three hundred and
fifty pounds. And ther