You may begin work this
afternoon and----" He hesitated.

"And?" she repeated.

"And I think it would be wise if you didn't tell your friend, the
doctor, that I am employing you."

He was examining his finger-nails attentively as he spoke, and he did
not meet her eye.

"There are many reasons," he went on. "In the first place, I have
blotted my copy-book, as they say, in Krooman Mansions, and it might not
rebound to your credit."

"You should have thought of that before you asked me to come to you,"
she said.

"I thought of it a great deal," he replied calmly.

There was much in what he said, as the girl recognized. She blamed
herself for her hasty promise, but somehow the events of the previous
night had placed him on a different footing, had given him a certain
indefinable position to which the inebriate Mr. Beale had not aspired.

"I am afraid I am rather bewildered by all the mystery of it," she said,
"and I don't think I will come to the office to-day. To-morrow morning,
at what hour?"

"Ten o'clock," he said, "I will be there to explain your duties. Your
salary will be L5 a week. You will be in charge of the office, to which
I very seldom go, by the way, and your work will be preparing
statistical returns of the wheat-crops in all the wheat-fields of the
world for the last fifty years."

"It sounds thrilling," she said, and a quick smile flashed across his
face.

"It is much more thrilling than you imagine," were his parting words.

She reached Krooman Mansions just as the doctor was coming out, and he
looked at her in surprise.

"You are back early!"

Should she tell him? There was no reason why she shouldn't. He had been
a good friend of hers and she felt sure of his sympathy. It occurred to
her at that moment that Mr. Beale had been most unsympathetic, and had
not expressed one word of regret.

"Yes, I've been discharged," she exclaimed.

"Discharged? Impossible!"

She nodded.

"To prove that it is possible it has happened," she said cheerfully.

"My dear girl, this is monstrous! What excuse did they give?"

"None." This was said with a lightness of tone which did not reflect the
indignation she felt at heart.

"Did they give you no reason?"

"They gave me none. They gave me my month's cheque and just told me to
go off, and off I came like the well-disciplined wage-earner I am."

"But it is monstrous," he said indignantly. "I will go and see them. I
know one of the heads of the f