young person,
alert to take the opportunity the moment gave.

She overtook him determinedly, one afternoon, as he walked ahead of her
from school, as usual. The holidays, during which neither had left
home, were over; the summer was over, the winter term well begun.

"Mr Kilbourne, will you come into No. 6 for one minute to-day?" she
said. "I particularly wish to speak to you."

He had been ready enough to go there in the old days, with or without
pretext; now he had the look of a man called on to do a thing at which
his soul sickened.

"If you will excuse me----" he said.

But Kate was resolute.

"I cannot excuse you. You must come at once," she said.

She had assumed the little air of authority over him which in her he
had found to be so pleasant. With a look upon his face as if he were
going to his execution, he obeyed.

For many weeks she had gone about, the words she meant to speak to him,
of encouragement, of comradeship, upon her lips; the chance to use them
had never come. Now she would not use them, but would speak to him as
if there had been no hiatus in their communion, as if no tragedy had
come between.

She faced him as they entered the bright little sitting-room, of
exquisite neatness, and sweet with flowers, which had ever seemed such
a haven of rest to him.

"Have you seen Alick?" she began. "Have you heard that they have
promoted him, and that he is to be sent to the Paris branch?" (Alick
was a clerk in one of the banks.)

He had not heard.

"He'll be pleased. It's what he wished for, isn't it?" he asked, not
looking at her, gazing before him with lack-lustre eyes.

Her heart sank as, seeing him close at hand, she noted the change in
him. Although, with his slouching gait and loose-hung limbs and hanging
head, he had never been a smart-looking man, he had yet been one
possessed of great personal nicety; in that matter--in the shipwreck of
his life--being careful not to let himself go. But now there was about
him a look of neglect, making to ache with pity the heart of the woman
who observed it.

Alick was pleased, she admitted, with sinking spirit. "But it is about
myself I want to ask your advice," she went on.

He glanced at her quickly with his deep, sad eyes, and glanced away
again.

"Shall I throw up what I am doing here, and go with Alick? It is this I
want to ask you. My brother could share lodgings with a friend he has
there. He does not really want me; but I used to wish