"I won’t be hysterical," she said. "But—I can’t understand why you’re going on like this. You loved me before you went abroad. What has happened since?" His eyes shifted from her face. "What has happened since?" she repeated. Woolf would not answer her. He got up and went to her little inlaid bureau, picked up a pen, squared his elbows and began writing something. Quivering with emotion, her breast heaving, her breath coming in gasping sobs, she stood where she was, incurious as to what he was doing. Presently he turned, and placed a piece of paper on the table. "You can stay on here till the end of the quarter," he said. "After that I shall sublet it. And here"—he pushed the paper toward her—"is a little present for you." She took a stumbling step toward him, arms outstretched, her poor face working. "Fred! Don’t go!" she shrieked. But he had got to the door. He would go. Nothing she could say or do would stop him. She had just enough presence of mind left not to follow him. Even in that moment of distress she had the sublime unselfishness to refrain from making a scene beyond the privacy of the flat—on his account. She tottered back to the table, clutching at it for support, stared down at the slip of paper he had left there—paper with a pretty lacy pattern, and read: "_Pay to_ Miss Delamere ... _or order_ Twenty-five pounds." The words danced before her eyes like little black mocking devils.... _Twenty-five pounds_! The price which Woolf thought sufficient to buy her off! Mad now, she scrawled her name on the back of the cheque, caught up her hat and ran downstairs into the street. At the corner there generally stood a miserable woman with a baby, selling flowers. She was there now. Maggy was a regular customer of hers. She thrust the cheque upon her. "It’s signed on the back. Take it—oh, take it!" she said wildly, closed the dumfounded woman’s fingers on the cheque, and sped on. She went fast, walking aimlessly, conscious of nothing but the desire for movement. She wanted to lose herself, to forget herself. Of the things around her she saw nothing, heard nothing. Her processes of thought seemed to be exhausted. Her brain was a mere reservoir of utter hopelessness. Yet, all the while, it was insensibly driving her in a given direction. In a dull way she realized this when she found herself in the street where Woolf lived. She had never been there since the day of that eventful lunch with him, seven months ago. The memory of it had a clarifying effect on her troubled mind. It calmed her frenzy. She asked herself what she meant to do, but could find no answer. She had not consciously intended going to his house. All motive for doing so was absent. Yet she could not pass it. She rang the bell, and when the door was opened enquired for Woolf. "Mr. Woolf is not in, miss," said the servant; "but Lady Susan is, if you would like to see her." Maggy, still mentally benumbed, entered and followed her.