if
you will do as I want--go down into the country, away from this horrible
town, and live quietly. I will manage the money, somehow."

"And not see you again? Jimmy, you don't mean not see you again, just as
a friend, only as a friend?"

His silence answered her, and she fell to sobbing once more, very
quietly this time, whilst he stood at the window, staring out at
nothing. At last, she grew calm and stood up, drying her eyes.

"Very well," she said. "I will leave it all to you, because I can't help
myself. After a time, when I feel better, I shall get something to do,
perhaps, in a shop, or dressmaking. Only, the quieter the place the
better; and, Jimmy, whatever you do, you must not let your people know
where I am."

"It is hardly likely I shall see much of them," he answered grimly. "I
think you had better go to some quiet hotel to-night," he added. "Get
your things together, and I will see you to-morrow and arrange matters
then. You say they are seizing all this furniture and so on."

They had both got back to a kind of forced calmness now, and she
answered him quietly. "Yes, my poor little home is going. It's no good
protesting; your sisters have made that impossible; and these people can
do just as they like. I suppose the landlord telephoned to the furniture
people, and they are going shares. Yet I have already paid more than the
goods are worth."

Half an hour later, she came out of the bedroom with her hat on.

"I have packed your things as well, Jimmy. What are you going to do with
them? Will you take them away now, and then I can leave the keys at the
agent's office as we go past."

Jimmy started. He had forgotten they were both homeless now. "Yes, I
suppose so. I hadn't thought. I will go to the hotel I stayed at before,
and then take you down to another. I will go and get a cab."

Whilst he was out, Lalage hastily tidied up her little kitchen; then,
taking a dustpan and brush, she swept up a few scraps of mud which had
come off Jimmy's boots. In a drawer of the table she found his pen and a
scrap of blotting paper he had used, and thrust them hurriedly into her
dress. Then, during a final look round, she kissed in turn each article
of furniture he had been wont to use, heedless of the tears that were
dropping on them, coming last of all to his own chair, where she knelt
down and buried her face in the seat. She was still there when she heard
his step on the stairs; but she jumped up hastily and