she had sown, and she must reap—as we always do. Accordingly she hailed a passing hansom and told the driver to take her to the Marble Arch, for she was too weary to walk; moreover she did not know the road. It was ten o’clock when she reached Kent Street. “My dear,” said Mrs. Bird, “how flushed you look! Where have you been? We were all getting quite anxious about you.” “I have been walking,” answered Joan: “I could not stand the heat of that shop any longer, and I felt as though I must get some exercise or faint.” “I do not think that young women ought to walk about the streets by themselves at night,” said Mrs. Bird reprovingly. “If you were so very anxious for exercise I dare say that I could have managed to accompany you. Have you had supper?” “No, and I don’t want any. I think that I will go to bed. I am tired.” “You will certainly not go to bed, Joan, until you have had something to eat. I don’t know what has come to you—I don’t indeed.” So Joan was forced to sit down and go through the farce of swallowing some food, while Sally ministered to her, and Jim, perceiving that something was wrong, smiled sympathetically across the table. How she got through the meal she never quite knew, for her mind was somewhat of a blank; though she could not help wondering vaguely what these good people would say, could they become aware that within the last hour she had been leaning on the parapet of Westminster Bridge purposing to cast herself into the Thames. Next morning Joan went to her work as usual. All day long she stood in the shop attending to her duties, but it seemed to her as though she had changed her identity, as though she were not Joan Haste, but a different woman, whom as yet she could not understand. Once before she had suffered this fancied change of self: on that night when she lay in the churchyard clasping Henry’s shattered body to her breast; and now again it was with her. That was the hour when she had passed from the regions of her careless girlhood into love’s field of thorns and flowers—the hour of dim and happy dream. This, the second and completer change, came upon her in the hour of awakening; and though the thorns still pierced her soul, behold, the red bloom she had gathered was become a bitter fruit, a very apple of Sodom, a fruit of the tree of sinful knowledge that she must taste of in the wilderness which she had won. Love had been with her in the field, and still he was with her in the desert; but oh! how different his aspect! Then he was bright and winged and beautiful, with lips of honey, and a voice of promise murmuring many a new and happy word; now he appeared terrible and stern, and spoke of sin, of sorrow, and of shame. Then also her lover had been at her side, now she was utterly alone, alone with the accusing angel of her conscience, and in this solitude she must suffer, with no voice to cheer her and no hand to help.