stood up, she rose likewise.

"Am I to take a kiss to Rhoda?" he said, and seeing her answer, bent his
forehead, to which she put her lips.

"And now I must think all night long about the method of transferring
it. Good-bye, Dahlia. You shall hear from your sister the morning after
to-morrow. Good-bye!"

He pressed her hand, and went to the door.

"There's nothing I can do for you, Dahlia?"

"Not anything."

"God bless you, my dear!"

Robert breathed with the pleasant sense of breathing, when he was again
in the street. Amazement, that what he had dreaded so much should be so
easily over, set him thinking, in his fashion, on the marvels of life,
and the naturalness in the aspect of all earthly things when you look at
them with your eyes.

But in the depths of his heart there was disquiet.

"It's the best she can do; she can do no better," he said; and said it
more frequently than it needed by a mind established in the conviction.
Gradually he began to feel that certain things seen with the eyes,
natural as they may then appear and little terrible, leave distinct,
solid, and grave impressions. Something of what our human tragedy may
show before high heaven possessed him. He saw it bare of any sentiment,
in the person of the girl Dahlia. He could neither put a halo of
imagination about her, nor could he conceive one degraded thought of the
creature. She stood a naked sorrow, haunting his brain.

And still he continued saying, "It's the best she can do: it's best for
all. She can do nothing better."

He said it, unaware that he said it in self-defence.

The pale nun-like ghostly face hung before him, stronger in outline the
farther time widened between him and that suffering flesh.

CHAPTER XXXI

The thousand pounds were in Algernon's hands at last. He had made his
escape from Boyne's Bank early in the afternoon, that he might obtain
the cheque and feel the money in his pocket before that day's sun
was extinguished. There was a note for five hundred; four notes for a
hundred severally; and two fifties. And all had come to him through the
mere writing down of his name as a recipient of the sum!

It was enough to make one in love with civilization. Money, when it is
once in your pocket, seems to have come there easily, even if you have
worked for it; but if you have done no labour whatever, and still find
it there, your sensations (supposing you to be a butterfly youth--the
typical child of a wealthy