She opened the door and as I followed her up the little hall told me the servant had been sent away and her mother was out. As on that former visit she seated herself at the desk, motioning me to a chair opposite. The blinds were raised, the room flooded with the last warm light of the afternoon. By its brightness I saw that she was even paler and more worn than she had been that other time—obviously a woman harassed and preyed upon by some inner trouble. On the way up I had gone over ways of approach, but sitting there in the quiet pretty room, so plainly the abode of gentlewomen, I couldn’t work round to the subject. She didn’t give me any help, seeming to assume that I had dropped in to pay a call. That made it more difficult. When a woman treats you as if you’re a gentleman, actuated by motives of common politeness, it’s pretty hard to break through her guard and pry into her secrets. She began to talk quickly and, it seemed to me, nervously, telling me how the owner of their old farm on the Azalea Woods Estates had offered them a cottage there, to which they would move next week. It was small but comfortable, originally occupied by a laborer’s family who had gone away. The people were very kind, would take no rent, and she and her mother could live for almost nothing till she found work. I sympathized with the idea, she’d get away from the wear and tear of the city, have time to rest and recuperate after her recent worry. She dropped her eyes to a paper on the desk and said: "Yes, I’m tired. Everything was so sudden and unexpected. I once thought I was strong enough to stand anything—but all this—" She stopped and picking up a pencil began making little drawings on the paper, designs of squares and circles. "It’s worn you out," I said, looking at her weary and colorless face. Like the thrust of a sword a pang shot through me—love of a man, hidden and disgraced, had blighted that once blooming beauty. She nodded without looking up: "It’s not the business only, there have been other—other—anxieties." That was more of an opening than anything I’d ever heard her say. I could feel the smothering beat of my heart as I answered, as quietly as I could: "Can’t you tell them to me? Perhaps I can help you." One of those sudden waves of color I’d seen before passed across her face. As if to hide it she dropped her head lower over the paper, touching up the marks she was making. Her voice came soft and controlled: "That’s very kind of you, Mr. Reddy—But I know you’re kind—I knew it when I first met you a year ago in the country. No, I can’t tell you." I leaned nearer to her. If I had a chance to make her speak it was now or never. "Miss Whitehall," I said, trying to inject a simple, casual friendliness into my voice. "You’re almost alone in the world, you’ve no one—no man, I mean—to look after you or your interests. You don’t know how much help I might be able to give you." "In what way?" she asked, with her eyes still on the paper.