"Not know where she is?" he demanded. "But you had my note; you know what has happened?" "Yes--I know," replied the old woman in a dull, level voice. "And she knows, too; I told her last night." "Well--what did she say?" "She didn't say anything; she seemed stunned," said Patience. "I broke it to her gently; I said there had been an accident, and that someone she loved--just like that I put it--someone she loved was dead. And the funny thing was that she looked at me wildly--and said another name--not his at all." "Another name?" Jimmy looked at her in perplexity. "Whose?" "Yours. She must have been thinking of something else," said the old woman. "Then, when I told her who it was, she sat for a long time brooding; but she didn't say anything. And this morning she went out quite early, without a word to me." "I'll come again," said Jimmy, moving towards the door. And at the door she called him softly. "Mr. Jimmy--did he tell you anything?" It was a mere whisper, and she looked at him intently while she spoke. "Everything. That's what I'm to see her about," he said. "I'll come again." He went back to his own rooms, and tried to work; but he could only think of the man who lay dead, and of the girl who was in a sense his pitiful legacy. He felt he could do nothing until he had seen her; until he had completed the work left for him. After that he would settle down again to the life he knew--the life of which this had been so strange an interruption. There came a note from Alice--a little hurried scrawled thing--demanding petulantly to know what had become of him, and whether he would not go and see her that evening; she would be all alone, she said, and promised to be very good. He was tearing it up slowly when there came a hesitating knock at the door; he went to open it, and found waiting there, outside on the landing, old Mr. Purdue. He took his hand, and drew him into the room, and shut the door. Jimmy's head was in a whirl; there seemed at that time so many vital things to be thought about and arranged--things more vital than he had ever touched before. On the one hand, the desperate woman whose lover was gone; on the other, the woman who wrote from the security of her assured position, and asked him to go and see her. And, lastly, this broken old man whose only son was dead--the only hope he had in life gone. Jimmy dropped the pieces of paper in the fire, and faced Mr. Purdue. "I came at once," said the old man. "It was kind of you to do what you have done--you have been most thoughtful. I would have liked--liked to have seen him again--alive, I mean. Because, you know"--he spread out his hands with a feeble gesture that was pitiful to see--"because, you know--this was my fault." "Your fault?" Jimmy looked at him in astonishment. "Yes. He came down to see me--he wanted to tell me something--wanted me to help him. And I drove him away; I wouldn't listen to him. I wish I'd listened now."