of course, wish me to look at your manuscript now?" I
said, temporizing; "it would be much better to leave it. Give me your
address, and I will return it to you with my written opinion; though, I
repeat, the latter will be of no use to you. It is the opinion of an
editor or publisher that you want."

"It shall be as you please. And I will go in a moment," said Miss
Grief, pressing her palms together, as if trying to control the tremor
that had seized her slight frame.

She looked so pallid that I thought of offering her a glass of wine;
then I remembered that if I did it might be a bait to bring her there
again, and this I was desirous to prevent. She rose while the thought
was passing through my mind. Her pasteboard box lay on the chair she
had first occupied; she took it, wrote an address on the cover, laid it
down, and then, bowing with a little air of formality, drew her black
shawl round her shoulders and turned toward the door.

I followed, after touching the bell. "You will hear from me by letter,"
I said.

Simpson opened the door, and I caught a glimpse of the maid, who was
waiting in the anteroom. She was an old woman, shorter than her
mistress, equally thin, and dressed like her in rusty black. As the
door opened she turned toward it a pair of small, dim blue eyes with a
look of furtive suspense. Simpson dropped the curtain, shutting me into
the inner room; he had no intention of allowing me to accompany my
visitor further. But I had the curiosity to go to a bay-window in an
angle from whence I could command the street-door, and presently I saw
them issue forth in the rain and walk away side by side, the mistress,
being the taller, holding the umbrella: probably there was not much
difference in rank between persons so poor and forlorn as these.

It grew dark. I was invited out for the evening, and I knew that if I
should go I should meet Miss Abercrombie. I said to myself that I would
not go. I got out my paper for writing, I made my preparations for a
quiet evening at home with myself; but it was of no use. It all ended
slavishly in my going. At the last allowable moment I presented myself,
and--as a punishment for my vacillation, I suppose--I never passed a
more disagreeable evening. I drove homeward in a murky temper; it was
foggy without, and very foggy within. What Isabel really was, now that
she had broken through my elaborately-built theories, I was not able to
decide. There was, to tell the truth,