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By Root 9920 0

as he walked across the Thames he drew himself aside in an instinctive withdrawal from his thought of her. He went to bed, but he could not sleep; he wondered what was the matter with her, and he could not get out of his head the fear that she was ill and hungry; she would not have written to him unless she were desperate. He was angry with himself for his weakness, but he knew that he would have no peace unless he saw her. Next morning he wrote a letter-card and posted it on his way to the shop. He made it as stiff as he could and said merely that he was sorry she was in difficulties and would come to the address she had given at seven o’clock that evening.

It was that of a shabby lodging-house in a sordid street; and when, sick at the thought of seeing her, he asked whether she was in, a wild hope seized him that she had left. It looked the sort of place people moved in and out of frequently. He had not thought of looking at the post-mark on her letter and did not know how many days it had lain in the rack. The woman who answered the bell did not reply to his inquiry, but silently preceded him along the passage and knocked on a door at the back.

“Mrs. Miller, a gentleman to see you,” she called.

The door was slightly opened, and Mildred looked out suspiciously.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Come in.”

He walked in and she closed the door. It was a very small bedroom, untidy as was every place she lived in; there was a pair of shoes on the floor, lying apart from one another and uncleaned; a hat was on the chest of drawers, with false curls beside it; and there was a blouse on the table. Philip looked for somewhere to put his hat. The hooks behind the door were laden with skirts, and he noticed that they were muddy at the hem.

“Sit down, won’t you?” she said. Then she gave a little awkward laugh. “I suppose you were surprised to hear from me again?”

“You’re awfully hoarse,” he answered. “Have you got a sore throat?”

“Yes, I have had for some time.”

He did not say anything. He waited for her to explain why she wanted to see him. The look of the room told him clearly enough that she had gone back to the life from which he had taken her. He wondered what had happened to the baby; there was a photograph of it on the chimney-piece, but no sign in the room that a child was ever there. Mildred was holding her handkerchief. She made it into a little ball, and passed it from hand to hand. He saw that she was very nervous. She was staring at the fire, and he could look at her without meeting her eyes. She was much thinner than when she had left him; and the skin, yellow and dryish, was drawn more tightly over her cheek-bones. She had dyed her hair and it was now flaxen: it altered her a good deal, and made her look more vulgar.

“I was relieved to get your letter, I can tell you,” she said at last. “I thought p‘raps you weren’t at the ’ospital anymore.”

Philip did not speak.

“I suppose you’re qualified by now, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“How’s that?”

“I’m no longer at the hospital. I had to give it up eighteen months ago.”

“You are changeable. You don’t seem as if you could stick to anything.”

Philip was silent for another moment, and when he went on it was with coldness.

“I lost the little money I had in an unlucky speculation and I couldn’t afford to go on with the Medical. I had to earn my living as best I could.”

“What are you doing then?”

“I’m in a shop.”

“Oh!”

She gave him a quick glance and turned her eyes away at once. He thought that she reddened. She dabbed her palms nervously with the handkerchief.

“You’ve not forgotten all your doctoring, have you?” She jerked the words out quite oddly.

“Not entirely.”

“Because that’s why I wanted to see you.” Her voice sank to a hoarse whisper. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

“Why don’t you go to a hospital?”

“I don’t like to do that, and have all the stoodents staring at me, and I’m afraid they’d want to keep me.”

“What are you complaining of?” asked Philip coldly, with the stereotyped phrase used in the out-patients’ room.

“Well, I’ve come out in a rash, and