Catherine sat at the dining room table, staring down at the straggling columns of figures on the sheet of yellow paper. Her mouth was sullen, mutinous. Mrs. O'Lay came through the hall, her broom swishing behind her. She had been redding up the study, and Catherine had moved her bookkeeping into the dining room. Well, there it was. Appalling totals. Bills and bills and bills. She ran her fingers across the ragged edges of her checkbook stub. No hope there. Then her hand crept past the bills to a long white envelope, bearing the Bureau inscription in one corner. Her check in full for the month, as if she had stayed in Ohio and finished the job. Charles's eyebrows, lifted inquiringly when Miss Kelly had appeared that morning, seemed to arch across her name on that envelope. She had only to take out that slip of paper, scrawl her name and "on deposit" across the back, and she was committed. Last night--Charles clinging to her hand--"It's wonderful, Cathy, having things right again. Don't spoil them." And she cravenly had kept silence. She looked again at the final figures in her check book. Tiny, impotent sum. Her mind busily added to them the figures of the check. But she couldn't take it, unless she meant to go on. Dr. Roberts intended it as an indication of her permanence, a check for the full month, when she had worked only half of it. Her fingers rested on the slip. The bills, the paltry little balance, worked on her in a sort of desperate fever. I'd have to give up Mrs. O'Lay, too, she thought, to even things. There'll be doctors' bills. That surgeon. Everything's overdrawn. Have to tell Miss Kelly. She saw herself vividly walking that treadmill. Poor Charles; he had expected some release, financially, from the clinic and his book. Wonderful, having things right--don't spoil them. She rose quickly, bunching together the devastating bits of paper. She had to see Dr. Roberts, at least. No use trying to think. Her mind was a jellyfish. Perhaps if she saw him, and talked with him, something with a backbone would rise up to rout the jellyfish. "I may not be in for luncheon," she told Mrs. O'Lay. "But you can manage." "Sure, you look elegant." Mrs. O'Lay replaced the cover on her kettle of soup. "An' a breath of air will do your heart good." It did, Catherine discovered. She had been housed too long. Clear, bright, gusty, with bits of paper swirling along the stone wall of the Drive, and sharp white wave edges rushing across the river. Too cold for the top of the bus. She watched the river through the window, and then the shops on the side streets. She was empty, except for bits of external things touching her eyes. Straw hats in the windows, and bright feathers; why, spring would come, soon. The elevator boy grinned at her widely, ducking his bullet head. "How'do. Ain't seen you round here for quite some time."