“The ten minutes are up,” said Mrs. Covering trying hard to smile, “and I have an appointment. If it is ever possible I will come to you, Miss Dallerton—at any rate I shall never forget that you asked me. But I do not think I shall come.” She walked quickly away, and Muriel watched her in silence. She remembered that people had said Sally Covering was the best-dressed woman in London. She was still—for it is rarely that the little things change. We don’t forget to put on gloves because our heart is broken. Muriel felt a passion to be alone. Alone in this world of green, robbed for the moment of its fresh beauty; alone to face the problem that rose in inexorable, dark power in society as well as in the slums—the problem which seems ever the same unrelenting enemy of joy and health and the beauty of life, and attacked the vital principles of all she believed in and hoped for. It was very difficult to go back to the group of merry idlers, dancing like butterflies over a precipice—butterflies intent on hiding from the unwary that there _is_ a precipice. The buzz of talk increased as she drew near them. One lady put up her lorgnette and looked at her as if she were some new invention, and then turning said in a perfectly audible voice: “The paragon of virtue approaches, but I don’t see the lost sheep!” The group dispersed and left Muriel for a moment with her hostess. “Oh, Muriel, how _could_ you do such a thing?” wailed Mary Huntly. “People must draw a line somewhere, you know. They may swallow the slums, but for _you_—before their very eyes——” “To speak to an old friend,” said Muriel quietly. “Mary, you can’t blame me. It’s terrible! terrible! But just because it is, one can’t let it pass!” Mary shrugged her shoulders. “It’s hopeless to argue with you, child,” she said. “Yet even you must see that if people _will_ do such things, they must be ignored for the sake of society at large.” “Society at large,” said Muriel bitterly, “which has caused the trouble, must protect itself from its own victims, I understand, Mary.” “But what would you have one do?” said Mary Huntly. “What good did your speaking to her do?” “It showed her that one cared,” said Muriel. “Too late, I am afraid, in her case. But one must give them a chance to come back, or at least see where they have gone, and wake them up to the horror of it! If you leave them to wake up too late for themselves, they will only fall into a deeper horror!” “A woman of that sort,” said Mrs. Huntly “is incorrigible—simply incorrigible, Muriel.” “Oh, Mary, you don’t mean that, I know. If it was some one you loved you would try to help her!” Mrs. Huntly turned with relief to welcome Dr. Grant. There was a positive pleasure in her greeting. It put an end to an unpleasant situation. The only thing in life that Mrs. Huntly was afraid of was an unpleasant situation. “Here’s your doctor, child,” she said in an undertone; “do go and wander.” Muriel accepted the proposition almost willingly.