the sea that caught
her breath as she turned down towards it, the fresh wind from the west,
blowing the ashes away from Naples, brought sudden tears to her eyes,
sudden, vague thoughts of far-off renewals, of the mending of all broken
things. In her weariness she could not stay the tears; they stood in her
eyes and quivered to her lashes. When she had climbed up to the little
room at the top of the steep stairs, they took her wholly; she leaned
her chin on her two hands and looked out over the city, not knowing
whether the tears dropping slowly were for the old things broken and
spilt, or for the slow mending that might yet be. Anyhow, the city lying
so in the afternoon sunshine had a most sad gaiety. It brought back to
Betty how Tommy's smile had to-day flickered out from the bandages,
lightening the sad eyes.

She was horribly tired; it seemed that she had been living at high
pressure, not only for these past few days--she could not count
them--but for days and weeks before that. The time comes when strung
nerves break like worn-out fiddle-strings; there is no more strength in
them.

So, in her hour of weakness, Betty wept, having fallen through the
broken floor of circumstance till she touched bottom, looking without
hope at some far, possible ascent, through the sad dimness of tears. The
west wind dried her tears on her face as she looked out; and Prudence
Varley came in.

Betty turned and faced her, as she paused for a moment to knock at the
open door, standing with chin a little raised to suit with the caught-up
lip, straight and tall, with the grey, artist's eyes that took in
everything and had been wont to give out nothing. Betty's mournful eyes
met the look with her new, sad comprehension of that restraint which had
always so held back everything. Yet now it seemed that it did not so
entirely hold back everything; its remoteness was less complete. Betty
hardly knew this; she knew chiefly how the room was tawdry and breathed
of stale smoke, how the table was littered with cards and _Marchese
Peppino_, how the other had come, perhaps, straight from a cool place,
smelling cleanly of paint, full of the April sunshine, spacious and pure
and bare.

Prudence Varley said:

'How do you do? May I come in? or----'

She paused, waiting. Betty was hardly used to such waiting on the part
of her visitors; as a rule they came in, deeming questions superfluous.

Betty considered it for a moment, her lower lip caught be