cut short.

"I asked the barber fellow about her when she'd gone," Gresham
pursued. "He'd taken her into an inner room, and when she came out she
was cropped like that. She told him she had come to her last shilling,
and she had an invalid at home depending on her entirely, and she
entreated him to give her all he could for her hair. I believe the
chap did too," he seemed so moved by her suffering and gentleness.
"What's the matter?"

Brock had risen abruptly with the sketches still in his hand. The
colour had left his face, and he looked as pinched and ill as he had
done during the early days of his convalescence.

"The matter!" he ejaculated. "I've just discovered what a blind fool I
am, that's what's the matter; and I'll keep these two studies with
your permission to remind me of the fact. Choose amongst mine any you
like instead of them, old chap, but these you must let me have."

Without waiting for an answer, he took the sketches away with him into
the house. When he returned a short time afterwards, he was dressed
for a journey, and had a travelling bag in his hand.

"I'm going to town," he said, "to see the original of these sketches.
I've run up an account with her I shall never be able to settle, but
at all events I can acknowledge my debt, dolt that I am! _I_ was that
invalid. And I thought myself such a gentleman too! not counting my
change and asking no questions, trusting her implicitly: that was my
pose from the day you came and poisoned my mind. Before that I had
neither trusted nor distrusted, but just taken things for granted as
they came, beautifully. I was too self-satisfied even to suspect that
she might be imposing her bounty upon me, starving herself that I
might have all I required, and sending me off here finally with the
last penny she had in the world. I told you I was wondering she did
not answer my letters. I expect she hadn't the stamp. But you said it
was out of sight out of mind, and she'd be trying it on with some one
else in my absence. If I'd the strength, I'd thrash you, Gresham, for
an evil-minded bounder."

"I'll carry your bag to the station, old chap," Gresham replied with
contrition, "and take the thrashing at your earliest convenience."

Ethel Maud Mary was standing on the steps in the sunshine looking out
when Arthur Brock arrived, just as she had stood to watch him depart,
but in the interval a happy change had pleasantly transformed her. Her
golden hair was brightly b