after the light died out of
her face, and she said:

'But how shall I live? Who will support me? I cannot ask mother for
money without awakening suspicion.'

'I think, May, I shall be able to give you almost all the money you
want,' replied Alice in a hesitating and slightly embarrassed manner.

'You, Alice?'

'But I haven't told you; I have been writing a good deal lately for
newspapers, and have made nearly twenty pounds. That will be all you
will want for the present, and I shall be able, I hope, to make
sufficient to keep you supplied.'

'I don't think that anyone was ever as good as you, Alice. You make me
feel ashamed of myself.'

'I am doing only what anyone else would do if they were called upon. But
we have been sitting here a long time now, and before we go back to the
tennis-ground we had better arrange what is to be done. When do you
propose leaving?'

'I had better leave at once. It is seven months ago now--no one suspects
as yet.'

'Well, then, when would you like me to send you the money? You can have
it at once if you like.'

'Oh, thanks, dear; mother will give me enough to last me a little while,
and I will write to you from Dublin. You are sure no one sees your
letters at Brookfield?'

'Quite sure; there's not the slightest danger.' She did not question the
advice she had given, and she felt sure that the Reverend Mother, if a
proper appeal were made to her common sense, would consent to conceal
the girl's fault. Two months would not be long passing, but the expenses
of this time would be heavy, and she, Alice, would have to meet them
all. She trembled lest she might fail to do so, and she tried to reckon
them up. It would be impossible to get rooms under a pound a week, and
to live, no matter how cheaply, would cost at least two pounds; three
pounds a week, four threes are twelve! The twenty pounds would scarcely
carry her over a month, she would not be well for at least two; and then
there was the doctor, the nurse, the flannels for the baby. Alice tried
to calculate, thinking plainly and honestly. If a repulsive detail rose
suddenly up in her mind, she did not shrink, nor was she surprised to
find herself thinking of such things; she did so as a matter of course,
keeping her thoughts fixed on the one object of doing her duty towards
her friend. And how to do this was the problem that presented itself
unceasingly for solution. She felt that somehow she would have to earn
twenty pounds