ittle else.

He found her sitting by a fire, wrapped in a shawl. It slipped from her
as she rose, as she leaped, rather, from her seat like one unnerved by a
sudden shock. He stooped and picked up the shawl before he spoke, that he
might give the poor thing time to recover herself.

"Did I startle you?" he said.

Maggie was still breathing hard. "I didn't think you'd come."

"Why not?"

"I don't know," she said weakly, and sat down again. Maggie was very
weak. She was not like the Maggie he remembered, the creature of
brilliant flesh and blood. Maggie's flesh was worn and limp; it had a
greenish tint; her blood no longer flowed in the cream rose of her face.
She had parted with the sources of her radiant youth.

She seemed to him to be suffering from severe anaemia. A horrible thought
came to him. Had the little thing been starving herself to save enough to
repay him?

"What have you been doing to yourself, Maggie?" he said brusquely.

Maggie looked frightened. "Nothing," she said.

"Working your fingers to the bone?"

She shook her head. "I was no good at dressmaking. They wouldn't have
me."

"Well--" he said kindly.

"There are a great many things I can do. I can make wreaths and crosses
and bookays. I made them at Evans's. I could go back there. Mr. Evans
would have me. But Mrs. Evans wouldn't." She paused, surveying her
immense resources. "Or I could do the flowers for people's parties.
I used to. Do you think--perhaps--they'd have me?"

Maggie's pitiful doubt was always whether "they" would "have" her.

"Yes," he said, smiling at her pathos, "perhaps they would."

"Or I could do embroidery. I learned, years ago, at Madame Ponting's.
I could go back. Only Madame wouldn't have me." (Maggie was palpably
foolish; but her folly was adorable.)

"Why wouldn't she have you?"

Maggie reddened, and he forbore to press the unkind inquiry. He gathered
that Maggie's ways had been not unknown to Madame Ponting, "years ago."

"Would you like to see some of my embroidery?"

He assented gravely. He did not want to turn Maggie from the path of
industry, which was to her the path of virtue.

She went to a cupboard, and returned with her arms full of little rolls
and parcels wrapped in paper. She unfolded and spread on the table
various squares, and strips, and little pieces, silk and woollen stuffs,
and canvas, exquisitely embroidered. There were flowers in most of the
patterns--flowers, as it appeared, of Ma