He dashed off a note begging his friend to send five pounds ten--or six pounds, if he could manage to spare so much--immediately, and then he remembered that he could not buy a stamp. There was a sick pause; defeat confronted them again. "There's nothing for it," he said; "I must go and ask the Garins! I'd post it without one if we were in England, but here----" He left her walking about the room in excitement and went down. The bureau was shut; he learnt that the women were out. "Do you think Nurse herself has got one?" he suggested, coming back, "or--or twenty-five centimes?" "She is out, too. She took baby ten minutes ago.... Humphrey!" "Another inspiration?" "The bottles!" she cried triumphantly, pointing to the wardrobe. "There are three!" On an empty bottle of the wine that they sometimes boiled in the evening, two sous were refunded if a customer chose to give himself the trouble to take it back. They had had occasion to acquire the knowledge. Kent pulled the bottles out, and, after an abortive effort to make a parcel of them, caught up his letter and ran to the shop. He got thirty centimes--bolted to the post-office, and saved the mail. Nothing could be done now but pray that Turquand might be in a position to oblige him. In the meantime the young woman--all unconscious of the jeopardy in which it had been--packed her box calmly in the room behind their door, and prepared for her departure on Saturday morning with the composure of one whose ticket and wages were as good as in her purse. By Friday evening the box was corded and labelled. When Kent and Cynthia entered and beheld it so, suspense tightened its grip about their hearts. The mail would not be delivered until about nine o'clock, and when they judged that the hour was near, they sat with tense nerves, straining to hear Etienne's heavy footsteps on the landing. As yet they had not arranged where to remove to on the morrow, and they spoke disjointedly of the necessity for deciding something. Kent said that it would be desirable to have two rooms in the new place also; then they would be able to talk when the baby was asleep; in one room it would be awful. This assumption that the nurse would not be with them was followed by intensified misgivings, and in her imagination both saw her sitting on her tin box, with her hat on, while they faltered to her that after all, she couldn't go. "If it comes in the morning, you know," he said, at the end of a long silence, "it will be in time. Her train doesn't start till ten." "Y-e-s," said Cynthia; "she _expects_ it to-night.... Is that some one coming upstairs?" "Nobody," answered Kent, listening intently.... "No, her train doesn't start till ten. I don't think, in point of fact, that we can look for it to-night. You see----" "We needn't _give up_ if it hasn't come when we go to bed." "No; that's what I mean. One must allow for--hark!... no; it's nothing--one must allow for him having to----" Cynthia uttered a cry.