not behave to me as he did. But I
daren't ask, I was so afraid of him. And I felt as if I could not leave
him, even if I was not his wife. That's where the badness of me came
out, you see, Miss Lettice. I would have stayed with him to the end of
my days, wife or no wife, if he had wanted me. But he tired of me very
soon."

"Did he tell you so, Milly?"

"He wrote to me to go back to the Hampstead rooms, miss. And I thought
that everything was going to be right between us. I had something to
tell him which I thought would please him; and I hoped--I hoped--even if
things had not been quite right about the marriage--that he would put
them straight before my baby came. For the child's sake I thought maybe
he wouldn't give me up. I had been dreadfully afraid; but when he sent
for me to London again, I thought that he loved me still, and that we
were going to have a happy time together.

"So I went to Hampstead; but he was not there. He sent his clerk
instead--the man you saw me walking with the other day. And he told me
that Mr.----Beadon did not wish to see me again, that I had been
deceived by the mock marriage, and that he sent me twenty pounds, and I
might have more by writing to his clerk. Not to him! I was never to see
him or speak to him again."

"And what did you do then, Milly?"

"It was very hard for me. I fainted, and when I came to myself Mr.
Johnson was gone, and the money was stuffed into my pocket. Perhaps it
was mean of me to keep it, but I hadn't the heart or the spirit to send
it back. I did not know what I should do without it, for I hadn't a
penny of my own. I stayed for a little time at the Hampstead lodgings,
but the landlady got an idea of the true state of things and abused me
shamefully one day for having come into her house; so I was forced to
go. I don't know what I should have done if I hadn't met Mr. Johnson in
the street. He was really kind, though he doesn't look as if he would
be. He told me of nice cheap lodgings, and of some one who would look
after me; and he offered me money, but I wouldn't take it."

"How long did your money last?"

"It was all gone before baby came. I lived on the dresses and presents
that Mr. Beadon had given me. I heard nothing from Birchmead--I did not
know that my grandmother was dead, and I used to think sometimes that I
would go to her; but I did not dare. I knew that it would break her
heart to see me as I was."

"Poor girl!" said Lettice again, below her