'And to-morrow you'll buy yourself a complete rig-out,' and he gave her five-and-twenty pounds and told her to pal with Leslie, that she was the best of the lot. It seemed to her quite a little fortune, and as Dick had to go to London next morning, she sent up word to Leslie to ask if she would come shopping with her. The idea of losing her lover so soon frightened her, and had it not been for the distraction that the buying of clothes afforded her the week she spent in Derby would have been intolerable. Leslie, it is true, often came to sit with Kate, and on more than one occasion went out to walk with her. But there were long hours which she was forced to pass alone in the gloom of the hotel sitting-room, and as she sat making herself a travelling dress, oppressed and trembling with thoughts, she was often forced to lay down her work. She had to admit that nothing had turned out as she had expected; even her own power of loving appeared feeble in comparison to the wealth of affection she had imagined herself lavishing upon Dick. Something seemed to separate them; even when she lay back and he held her in his arms, she was not as near to him as she had dreamed of being; and try as she would, she found it impossible to wipe out of her mind the house in Hanley. It rose before her, a dark background with touches of clear colour: the little girls working by the luminous window with the muslin curtains and the hanging pot of greenstuff; the stiff-backed woman moving about with plates and dishes in her hands; the invalid wheezing on the little red calico sofa. The past was still reality, and the present a fable. It didn't seem true: lying with a man who was still strange to her; rising when she pleased; getting even her meals when she pleased. She could not realize the fact that she had left for ever her quiet home in the Potteries, and was travelling about the country with a company of strolling actors. The spider that had spun itself from the ceiling did not seem suspended in life by a less visible thread than herself. Supposing Dick were never to return! The thought was appalling, and on more than one occasion she fell down on her knees to pray to be preserved from such a terrible misfortune. But her hours of solitude were not the worst she had to bear. Impelled by curiosity to hear all the details of the elopement, and urged by an ever-present desire to say unpleasant things, Miss Beaumont paid Kate many visits, and sitting with her thick legs crossed, she insinuated all she dared. She did not venture upon a direct statement, but by the aid of a smile and an indirect allusion it was easy to suggest that love in an actor's heart is brief. As long as Miss Beaumont was present Kate repressed her feelings, but when she found herself alone tears flowed down her cheeks, and sobs echoed through the dusty sitting-room.