"Well, you have now. Go away at once. Take a holiday. You'll work like Shakespeare and Michelangelo after it." "But I _can't_--that's just it. It's those stories for the _Monthly Multitude_; I'm doing a series. I'm behind _now_: and if I don't get it done this week, they'll stop the series. It's what I've been working for all these years. It's the best chance I've ever had, and it's come _now_, when I can't do it. Your father's a doctor: isn't there any medicine you can take to make your head more like a head and less like a suet pudding?" "Look here," said Milly, "I really came in to ask you to come away with us at Whitsuntide; but you ought to go away _now_. Just go to our cottage at Lymchurch. There's a dear old girl in the village--Mrs Beale--she'll look after you. It's a glorious place for work. Father did reams down there. You'll do your stuff there right enough. This is only Monday. Go to-morrow." "Did he? I will. Oh yes, I will. I'll go to-night, if there's a train." "No, you don't, my dear lunatic. You are now going to wash your face and do your hair, and take me out to dinner--a real eighteenpenny dinner at Roches. I'll stand treat." It was after dinner, as the two girls waited for Milly's omnibus, that the word of the evening was spoken. "I do hope you'll have a good quiet time," Milly said; "and it really is a good place for work. Poor Edgar did a lot of work there last year. There's a cabinet with a secret drawer that he said inspired him with mysterious tales, and---- There's my 'bus." "Why do you say _poor_ Edgar?" Jane asked, smiling lightly. "Oh, hadn't you heard? Awfully sad thing. He sailed from New York a fortnight ago. No news of the ship. His mother's in mourning. I saw her yesterday. Quite broken down. Good-bye. _Do_ take care of yourself, and get well and jolly." Jane stood long staring after the swaying bulk of the omnibus, then she drew a deep breath and went home. Edgar was dead. What a brute Milly was! But, of course, Edgar was nothing to Milly--nothing but a pleasant friend. How slowly people walked in the streets! Jane walked quickly--so quickly that more than one jostled foot-passenger stopped to stare after her. She had known that he was coming home--and when. She had not owned to herself that the constant intrusion of that thought, "He is here--in London," the wonder as to when and how she should see him again, had counted for very much in these last days of fierce effort and resented defeat. She got back to her rooms. She remembers letting herself in with her key. She remembers that some time during the night she destroyed all those futile beginnings of stories. Also, that she found herself saying over and over again, and very loud: "There are the boys--you know there are the boys." Because, when you have two little brothers to keep, you must not allow yourself to forget it. But for the rest she remembers little distinctly. Only she is sure that she did not cry, and that she did not sleep.