I
can't leave this world and go to another. There may be no pity for me
there, as there is none here.'

'Janet, my child, there _is_ pity. Have I ever done anything but love
you? And there is pity in God. Hasn't He put pity into your heart for
many a poor sufferer? Where did it come from, if not from Him?'

Janet's nervous irritation now broke out into sobs instead of
complainings; and her mother was thankful, for after that crisis there
would very likely come relenting, and tenderness, and comparative calm.
She went out to make some tea, and when she returned with the tray in her
hands, Janet had dried her eyes and now turned them towards her mother
with a faint attempt to smile; but the poor face, in its sad blurred
beauty, looked all the more piteous.

'Mother will insist upon her tea,' she said, 'and I really think I can
drink a cup. But I must go home directly, for there are people coming to
dinner. Could you go with me and help me, mother?'

Mrs. Raynor was always ready to do that. She went to Orchard Street with
Janet, and remained with her through the day--comforted, as evening
approached, to see her become more cheerful and willing to attend to her
toilette. At half-past five everything was in order; Janet was dressed;
and when the mother had kissed her and said good-bye, she could not help
pausing a moment in sorrowful admiration at the tall rich figure, looking
all the grander for the plainness of the deep mourning dress, and the
noble face with its massy folds of black hair, made matronly by a simple
white cap. Janet had that enduring beauty which belongs to pure majestic
outline and depth of tint. Sorrow and neglect leave their traces on such
beauty, but it thrills us to the last, like a glorious Greek temple,
which, for all the loss it has suffered from time and barbarous hands,
has gained a solemn history, and fills our imagination the more because
it is incomplete to the sense.

It was six o'clock before Dempster returned from Rotherby. He had
evidently drunk a great deal, and was in an angry humour; but Janet, who
had gathered some little courage and forbearance from the consciousness
that she had done her best to-day, was determined to speak pleasantly to
him.

'Robert,' she said gently, as she saw him seat himself in the dining-room
in his dusty snuffy clothes, and take some documents out of his pocket,
'will you not wash and change your dress? It will refresh you.'

'Leave me alone, will you