"I don't care! that is what it will come to. The bandage is the beginning. People must not get their living in that way anyhow. I've thought it out. Let them thought-read their daughters and hypnotise their aunts, and leave their typewriters alone." "But what am I to do?" "That's not it. There are things one must not suffer anyhow, whatever happens! Or else--one might be made to do anything. Honour! Just because we are poor--Let him dismiss you! _Let_ him dismiss you. You can get another place--" "Not at a guinea a week." "Then take less." "But I have to pay sixteen shillings every week." "That doesn't matter." She caught at a sob, "But to leave London--I can't do it, I can't." "But how?--Leave London?" Lewisham's face changed. "Oh! life is _hard_," she said. "I can't. They--they wouldn't let me stop in London." "What do you mean?" She explained if Lagune dismissed her she was to go into the country to an aunt, a sister of Chaffery's who needed a companion. Chaffery insisted upon that. "Companion they call it. I shall be just a servant--she has no servant. My mother cries when I talk to her. She tells me she doesn't want me to go away from her. But she's afraid of him. 'Why don't you do what he wants?' she says." She sat staring in front of her at the gathering night. She spoke again in an even tone. "I hate telling you these things. It is you ... If you didn't mind ... But you make it all different. I could do it--if it wasn't for you. I was ... I _was_ helping ... I had gone meaning to help if anything went wrong at Mr. Lagune's. Yes--that night. No ... don't! It was too hard before to tell you. But I really did not feel it ... until I saw you there. Then all at once I felt shabby and mean." "Well?" said Lewisham. "That's all. I may have done thought-reading, but I have never really cheated since--_never_.... If you knew how hard it is ..." "I wish you had told me that before." "I couldn't. Before you came it was different. He used to make fun of the people--used to imitate Lagune and make me laugh. It seemed a sort of joke." She stopped abruptly. "Why did you ever come on with me? I told you not to--you _know_ I did." She was near wailing. For a minute she was silent. "I can't go to his sister's," she cried. "I may be a coward--but I can't." Pause. And then Lewisham saw his solution straight and clear. Suddenly his secret desire had become his manifest duty. "Look here," he said, not looking at her and pulling his moustache. "I won't have you doing any more of that damned cheating. You shan't soil yourself any more. And I won't have you leaving London." "But what am I to do?" Her voice went up. "Well--there is one thing you can do. If you dare." "What is it?" He made no answer for some seconds. Then he turned round and sat looking at her. Their eyes met....