s were in the melting pot; a man,
the finest she had known, had confessed his love in his extremity, and
before she could respond passed into the shadow. But Farwell had left
her as a legacy the love of freedom for which he died, for which she was
going to live.

When they arrived at Elm Tree Place, Victoria forced Betty to drink some
brandy, to tell her how Farwell had sent her a message, asking her to
send him Victoria, how she had waited for her.

'Oh, it was awful,' whispered Betty, 'the maid said you'd be late . . .
she said I mustn't wait because you might not . . .'

'Not come home alone?' said Victoria in a frozen voice.

'Oh, I can't bear it, I can't bear it.' Betty flung herself into her
friend's arms, wildly weeping.

Victoria soothed her, made her undress. As Betty grew more collected she
let drop a few words.

'Oh, so then you too are happy?' said Victoria smiling faintly.

'You love?' A burning blush rose over Betty's face.

That night, as in the old Finsbury days, they lay in one another's arms
and Victoria grappled with her sorrow. Gentle, almost motherly, she
watched over this young life; blushing, full of promise, preparing
already to replace the dead.

CHAPTER XI

THE death of Farwell seemed to leave Victoria struggling and gasping for
breath, like a shipwrecked mariner who tries to secure his footing on
shifting sand while waves knock him down every time he rises to his
knees. Though she hardly ever saw him and though she had no precise idea
that he cared for her more than does the scientist for the bacteria he
observes, he had been her tower of strength. He was there, like the
institutions which make up civilisation, the British Constitution, the
Bank and the Established Church. Now he was gone and she saw that the
temple of life was empty. He was the last link. Cairns's death had
turned her out among the howling wolves; now Farwell seemed to have
carried away with him her theory of life. Above all, she now knew
nobody; save Betty, who counted as a charming child. It was then she
began to taste more cruelly the isolation of her class.

In the early days, when she paced up and down fiercely in the room at
Portsea Place, she had already realised that she was alone, but then she
was not an outcast; the doors of society were, if not open, at any rate
not locked against her. Then the busy hum of the Rosebud and the P.R.R.,
the back-breaking work, the hustle, the facile friendships wi