Whether a sting or a kindness lay in the closing sentence, Evarne knew not, but all the statements in the letter were as clearly undeniable as was the fact that Milly had deserted her. She felt both ashamed and strangely forsaken, and crushing the scrap of paper in her hand, rested her pale cheek on the bare boards of the table, while tears of feebleness and helplessness rolled from her weary eyes and slowly soaked their way into the wood. Hampered as she was by her still awkwardly swollen and painful hand, with those terrible debts clinging like leeches, and with the imperative need there had been for every penny that she and her assistant had earned by their united efforts, she could not conceive how she was possibly to manage without any help whatsoever. Milly might have stood by her a little longer, she thought sadly. There was no chance of economising on anything save food, and to such lengths was she now forced to carry this disastrous self-denial, that the uninitiated might have supposed she was trying to solve the problem of how to live without eating. Naturally dainty, she had, in Jean's day, often left untouched much of the indifferent food provided. Now she consumed far rougher and more unpalatable meals to the last crumb with avidity, and once or twice even ignobly consumed what should have been her supper at the same time as her dinner. She bravely persevered with her work, cutting-out and machining and stitching from early morning until darkness descended. Even then she continued her weary labours with the work held close up to the light of a guttering candle, until practical inability to see longer forced her to cease, to throw herself upon her bed and sleep. But the night time brought very imperfect rest. Constantly she was awakened by the vividness of dreams of banquets; well-stored provision shops; food lying in the very gutter while people held her back from reaching it; boards lavishly spread, whence every dish faded immediately she thrust forth her hand to grasp its contents. Scarcely ever did she leave the four bare walls of her room, save for necessary business. Not only had she neither time nor strength, but now the soles of her shoes were worn into great holes and her stockings were no longer mendable, so that her bare feet trod the pavement, and became bruised and blistered. And every effort, additional to the day's routine, was to be avoided. Scarcely could she drag herself up of a morning, repeatedly would she find that the treadle of the machine was being worked slower and yet more slowly, as a dull stupor and inertness crept like a fog over her mind. Once she wasted a whole afternoon by fainting, and came to herself to find that nightfall had set in while she was lying unconscious upon the floor.