"And you came away? You shouldn't have come away! You should have told him what it is to you. What you will have to put up with if you can't get the berth. You should have said, 'You're taking the bread out of my mouth, you're stealing the coat off my back. It's life and death to me.' You should have said that, and made him hear. And you came away!" Peter looked back upon that action, sorrowfully considering it. "I thought it very affable of him to shake hands," he said, "but he had a very final way of doing it. And, besides, I didn't care to make a tale of my private affairs, and seem to cringe. I didn't want him to think----" "What does it matter about _him_?" Cicely demanded, with scorn. "Do we care what _he_ thinks? Oh, Peter, go back to him, dear; do--do go back. Tell him he _must_ pass you. Tell him it's your chance, your only--only one. And how you've tried and tried--and this is the only one; and how cruel everyone is at home--just as if it was your fault that no one--no one will give you work to do. And tell him you'd rather be dead than go home and say you'd lost it. Oh, Peter, say that; it is true--it is true----!" She was crying. The rain blown on her cheek by the angry wind mingled with the tears there. She held his wrist--that bony, flat wrist, which had had its own tale to tell to the examining physician--protruding from the shabby coat-sleeve, and led him, he nearly unresisting, back to the door. On the door-step he hesitated, looking at the child with beseeching dark eyes. "He's awfully busy--his room's full--he isn't the sort to take liberties with--I don't want to bother him again." But she kept a relentless hold upon the wrist, and herself rang the bell, and when the door opened, pushed him within with remorseless urgency. "Never mind cringing," she whispered. "Tell him everything. Tell him how they treat you at home. Don't mind what he thinks." So, in Peter went, and Cicely, her school-books tucked away under her arm for the protection afforded by her mackintosh, the rain coming on faster and faster, walked the pavement, or waited on the doorstep, and now and again crossed the road in the baseless hope that she might not find the other side so wet, for a miserable two hours. "Why, I thought I had finished with you, sir, more than an hour ago," the physician said, looking up, not too well pleased, when Peter, nervously smiling, his dark-curled head with its pale Jewish features pushed well forward, appeared in the consulting-room again.