d like to have
you come over if you want to.--Mehitable Smith."

Touched by the unexpected kindness, Miss Evelina took in the tray.
There was a bowl of soup, steaming hot, a baked potato, a bit of thin
steak, fried, in country fashion, two crisp, buttered rolls, and a pot
of tea. Faint and sick of heart, she pushed it aside, then in simple
justice to Miss Hitty, tasted of the soup. A little later, she put the
tray out on the doorstep again, having eaten as she had not eaten for
months.

She considered the chain of circumstances that had led her back to
Rushton. First, the knowledge that Doctor Dexter had left the place
for good. She had heard of that, long ago, but, until now, no one had
told her that he had returned. She had thought it impossible for him
ever to return--even to think of it again,

Otherwise--here the thread of her thought snapped, and she clutched at
the vial of laudanum which, as always, was in the bag at her belt. She
perceived that the way of escape was closed to her. Broken in spirit
though she was, she was yet too proud to die like a dog at Anthony
Dexter's door, even after five-and-twenty years.

Bitterest need alone had driven her to take the step which she so
keenly regretted now. The death of her mother, hastened by misfortune,
had left her with a small but certain income, paid regularly from two
separate sources. One source had failed without warning, and her
slender legacy was cut literally in two. Upon the remaining half she
must eke out the rest of her existence, if she continued to exist at
all. It was absolutely necessary for her to come back to the one
shelter which she could call her own.

Weary, despairing, and still in the merciless grip of her obsession,
she had come--only to find that Anthony Dexter had long since preceded
her. A year afterward, Miss Hitty said, he had come back, with a
pretty young wife. And he had a son.

The new knowledge hurt, and Evelina had fancied that she could be hurt
no more, that she had reached the uttermost limits of pain. By a
singular irony, the last refuge was denied her at the very moment of
her greatest temptation to avail herself of it. Long hours of thought
led her invariably to the one possible conclusion--to avoid every one,
keep wholly to herself, and, by starvation, if need be, save enough of
her insignificant pittance to take her far away. And after
that--freedom.

Since the night of full realisation which had turne