The consciousness of this involuntary drifting apart from the old man whom she liked and admired for his gentleness and his loyalty intensified the loneliness with which Mrs. Lenoir's death afflicted Winnie. She was in no better case now than when her friend had rescued her from the empty studio and thereby seemed to open to her a new life. The new life, too, was gone with the friend who had given it. Looking back on her career since she had left Cyril Maxon's roof, she saw the same thing happening again and again. She had made friends and lost them; she had picked them up, walked with them to the next fork in the road, and there parted company. "Is it mere chance, or something in me, or something in my position?" she asked herself. A candid survey could not refuse the conclusion that the position had contributed largely to the result. The case of Godfrey Ledstone, the more trivial instance of Bob Purnett, were there to prove it. The position had been a vital and practically exclusive factor in bringing about her parting from Bertie Merriam; she had an idea that its action was to be traced in the continued absence and silence of Dick Dennehy. The same thing which had parted her from her men-friends had forbidden her friendships with women. She could, she felt, have made a friend of Amy Ledstone. To-day she would have liked to make a friend of kindly shrewd old Mrs. Ladd; but though Mrs. Ladd came to see her at the flat which had been Mrs. Lenoir's, she received no invitation to Mrs. Ladd's house. The pressure of public opinion, the feelings of Mr. Attlebury's congregation, the 'awkwardness' which would arise with Mrs. Ladd's old, if too exacting, friend, Cyril Maxon, forbade. The one friendship which had proved able to resist the disintegrating influence was ended now by death. Well, great benefits cannot reasonably be expected for nothing. If she was alone, she was also free--wonderfully free. And, of a certainty, complete freedom can seldom be achieved save at the cost of a voluntary or involuntary severing of ties. Must every one then be either a slave or a solitary? She was not so soured as to accept that conclusion. She knew that there was a way out--only she had not found it. The Aikenheads had, down at Shaylor's Patch! Thither--to her old haven--her thoughts turned longingly. While it stood, she did it injustice in calling herself friendless. Yet to retire to that pleasant seclusion went against pride; it seemed like a retreat, a confession that the world had been too much for her, that she was beaten. She was not prepared to acknowledge herself beaten--at least, not by the enemy in a fair square fight. Her disasters were due to the defection of her allies. So she insisted, as she sat long hours alone in the flat--ah, now so quiet indeed!