the
wild confusion of her feelings, a mechanical intelligence guided her
hand to follow Arthur Dayson's final sentences. And there shone out from
her soul a contempt for the miserable hack, so dazzling that it would
have blinded him--had he not been already blind.

III

That evening she sat alone in the office. The first number of _The Five
Towns Chronicle_, after the most astounding adventures, had miraculously
gone to press. Dayson and Sowter had departed. There was no reason why
Hilda should remain,--burning gas to no purpose. She had telegraphed, by
favour of a Karkeek office-boy, to Miss Gailey, saying that she would
come by the first train on the morrow--Saturday, and she had therefore
much to do at home. Nevertheless, she sat idle in the office, unable to
leave. Her whole life was in that office, and it was just when she was
most weary of the environment that she would vacillate longest before
quitting it. She was unhappy and apprehensive, much less about her
mother than about the attitude of her conscience towards the morals of
this new world of hers. The dramatic Enville incident had spoiled the
pleasure which she had felt in sacrificing her formal duty as a daughter
to her duty as a clerk. She had been disillusioned. She foresaw the
future with alarm.

And yet, strangely, the disillusion and the fear were a source of
pleasure. She savoured them with her loyalty, that loyalty which had
survived even the frightful blow of George Cannon's casual disdain at
her mother's tea-table! Whatever this new world might be, it was hers,
it was precious. She would no more think of abandoning it than a young
mother would think of abandoning a baby obviously imperfect.... Nay, she
would cling to it the tighter!

George Cannon came up the stairs with his decisive and rapid step. She
rose from her chair at the table as he entered. He was wearing a new
overcoat, that she had never seen before, with a fine velvet collar.

"You're going?" he asked, a little breathless.

"I _was_ going," she replied in her clear, timid voice, implying that
she was ready to stay.

"Everything all right?"

"Mr. Dayson said so."

"He's gone?"

"Yes. Mr. Sowter's gone too."

"Good!" he murmured. And he straightened his shoulders, and, putting his
hands in the pockets of his trousers, began to walk about the room.

Hilda moved to get her bonnet and jacket. She moved very quietly and
delicately, and, because he was there, she put on her