"Better for whom?" she interrupted. "For--well, for me, for one. The fact is, that certain interests pertaining to myself and others--_certain reminiscences of the past_," he continued with very strong emphasis, "have become so complicated, so interwoven as it were one with the other, that we must in all probability stand or fall together." "I do not understand you." "I can scarcely expect that you should. But--were any proceeding on your part, any word, whether spoken by design or accident, to lead to that fall, you would rue it to the last hour of your life. _That_ you can at least understand." The faintness was passing off, and Miss Rye rose, steadying herself against the railings of Mr. Hurst's desk. At that moment the inner door was unlatched, and the clerk, recalled to present duties, caught the note from her unresisting hand. "For Mr. Bede Greatorex," he said aloud, glancing at the superscription. "I will give it to him." It was Mr. Bede Greatorex who came forth. He took the note, and glanced at Alletha. "Ah, Miss Rye! Is it you?" "Our maid was busy, so I brought it down," she explained. "Mr. Ollivera is waiting for an answer." Bede Greatorex went back to his room, leaving the intervening door open. She sat and waited. Mr. Brown, whose work was in a hurry, wrote on steadily at his desk by the light of a shaded lamp. A minute or two, and Bede Greatorex brought her a bit of paper twisted up, and showed her out himself. With the errand she had come abroad to execute for herself gone clean out of her head, Alletha Rye went back home, her brain in a whirl. The streets she passed through were crowded with all the bustle and jostle of London life; but, had she been traversing an African desert, she could not have felt more entirely alone. Her life that night lay within her: and it was one of confused tumult. The note found Mr. Ollivera asleep: as the twilight deepened, he had dropped, in sheer weariness, into an unconscious slumber. Untwisting the scrap of paper, he held it near a lighted candle and read the contents:-- "Dear Henry,--Kene is back, and is coming to us this evening; we expect two or three friends. Louisa will be pleased if you can join us. Faithfully yours, "B.G." Mr. Ollivera eschewed gaiety of all kinds, parties included. Over and over again had he been fruitlessly invited to the grand dinners and soirées of Mrs. Bede Greatorex, until they left off asking him. "Two or three friends," he repeated as he put down the note. "I don't mind that, for I must see Kene." Dressing himself; he was on the point of setting out, when a messenger arrived to fetch him to a sick person; so that it was half-past ten when he reached the house of Mr. Greatorex. And then, but for his mission to the Judge, he would have quitted it again without entering the reception-rooms.