ade proud for the
moment of this phenomenon of stupendous monotony. 'I wonder how she can
stand it--she has a refined face,' the visitor might remark; and Mary
Beechinor was left alone again. The idea that her work was monotonous
probably never occurred to the girl. It was her work--as natural as
sleep, or the knitting which she always did in the dinner-hour. The calm
and silent regularity of it had become part of her, deepening her
original quiescence, and setting its seal upon her inmost spirit. She
was not in the fellowship of the other girls in the painting-shop. She
seldom joined their more boisterous diversions, nor talked their talk,
and she never manoeuvred for their men. But they liked her, and their
attitude showed a certain respect, forced from them by they knew not
what. The powers in the office spoke of Mary Beechinor as 'a very
superior girl.'

She ran downstairs after Mark, and he waited in the narrow hall, where
there was scarcely room for two people to pass. Mark looked at her
inquiringly. Rather thin, and by no means tall, she seemed the merest
morsel by his side. She was wearing her second-best crimson merino
frock, partly to receive the doctor and partly because it was Saturday
night; over this a plain bibless apron. Her cold gray eyes faintly
sparkled in anger above the cheeks white with watching, and the dropped
corners of her mouth showed a contemptuous indignation. Mary Beechinor
was ominously roused from the accustomed calm of years. Yet Mark at
first had no suspicion that she was disturbed. To him that pale and
inviolate face, even while it cast a spell over him, gave no sign of the
fires within.

She took him by the coat-sleeve and silently directed him into the
gloomy little parlour crowded with mahogany and horsehair furniture,
white antimacassars, wax flowers under glass, and ponderous
gilt-clasped Bibles.

'It's a cruel shame!' she whispered, as though afraid of being overheard
by the dying man upstairs.

'Do you think I ought to have given way?' he questioned, reddening.

'You mistake me,' she said quickly; and with a sudden movement she went
up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. The caress, so innocent,
unpremeditated, and instinctive, ran through him like a voltaic shock.
These two were almost strangers; they had scarcely met till within the
past week, Mark being seldom in Bursley. 'You mistake me--it is a shame
of _him_! I'm fearfully angry.'

'Angry?' he repeated, astoni