r from Miss Gailey this morning," she said. "And it seems
that it's about her that you wanted--"

"Yes."

"I do wish I'd known. If I'd had the slightest idea I should have come
over instantly." She spoke with eager seriousness, and then added,
smiling as if in appeal to be favourably understood: "I thought it was
only about _my_ affairs--sale or what not. And as I'd asked you to
manage all these things exactly as you thought best, I didn't trouble--"

He laughed, and either forgave or forgot.

"Will you come this way?" he invited, in a new tone of friendliness.
"We're rather in a mess here."

"You're all alone, too," she said, following him into his room.

"Sowter's out," he answered laconically, waiting for her to precede him.
He said nothing as to the office-boy, nor as to Mr. Karkeek. Hilda was
now sure that something strange had happened.

"So you've heard from Sarah, have you?" he began, when they were both
seated in his own room. There were still a lot of papers, though fewer
than of old, on the broad desk; but the bookcase was quite empty, and
several of the shelves in it had supped from the horizontal; the front
part of the shelves was a pale yellow, and behind that, an irregular
dark band of dust indicated the varying depths of the vanished tomes.
The forlornness of the bookcase gave a stricken air to the whole room.

"She's not well."

"Or she imagines she's not well."

"Oh no!" said Hilda warmly. "It isn't imagination. She really isn't
well."

"You think so?"

"I don't think--I know!" Hilda spoke proudly, but with the restraint
which absolute certainty permits. She crushed, rather than resented,
George Cannon's easy insinuation, full of the unjustified superiority of
the male. How could he judge--how could any man judge? She had never
before felt so sure of herself, so adult and experienced, as she felt
then.

"But it's nothing serious?" he suggested with deference.

"N--no--not what you'd call serious," said Hilda judicially,
mysteriously.

"Because she wants to give up the boarding-house business altogether--
that's all!"

Having delivered this dramatic blow, George Cannon smiled, as it were,
quizzically. And Hilda was reassured about him. She had been thinking:
"Is he ruined? If he is not ruined, what is the meaning of these
puzzling changes here?" And she had remembered her shrewd mother's
hints, and her own later fears, concerning the insecurity of his
position: and had studied his