olice,
but it was all right, and I had twenty pounds reward. Think! twenty
pounds!"

Hilliard nodded.

"I told no one about it--not even Patty. And I put the money into the
Post Office savings bank. I meant it to stay there till I might be in
need; but I thought of it day and night. And only a fortnight after, my
employers shut up their place of business, and I had nothing to do. All
one night I lay awake, and when I got up in the morning I felt as if I
was no longer my old self. I saw everything in a different way--felt
altogether changed. I had made up my mind not to look for a new place,
but to take my money out of the Post Office--I had more than
twenty-five pounds there altogether--and spend it for my pleasure. It
was just as if something had enraged me, and I was bent on avenging
myself. All that day I walked about the town, looking at shops, and
thinking what I should like to buy: but I only spent a shilling or two,
for meals. The next day I bought some new clothing. The day after that
I took Patty to the theatre, and astonished her by my extravagance; but
I gave her no explanation, and to this day she doesn't understand how I
got my money. In a sort of way, I _did_ enjoy myself. For one thing, I
took a subscription at Mudie's, and began to read once more. You can't
think how it pleased me to get my books--new books--where rich people
do. I changed a volume about every other day--I had so many hours I
didn't know what to do with. Patty was the only friend I had made, so I
took her about with me whenever she could get away in the evening."

"Yet never once dined at a restaurant," remarked Hilliard, laughing.
"There's the difference between man and woman."

"My ideas of extravagance were very modest, after all."

Hilliard, fingering his coffee-cup, said in a lower voice:

"Yet you haven't told me everything."

Eve looked away, and kept silence.

"By the time I met you"--he spoke in his ordinary tone--"you had begun
to grow tired of it."

"Yes--and----" She rose. "We won't sit here any longer."

When they had walked for a few minutes:

"How long shall you stay in Paris?" she asked.

"Won't you let me travel with you?"

"I do whatever you wish," Eve answered simply.

CHAPTER XVII

Her accent of submission did not affect Hilliard as formerly; with a
nervous thrill, he felt that she spoke as her heart dictated. In his
absence Eve had come to regard him, if not with the feeling he desired,
wi