“You think me very frivolous?” Mrs. Elles sighed out. “But I only laugh that I may not weep--I go about trying to kill thought. If I did not, I should go mad with what is hanging over me! And the worst I have to bear almost is the thought that though I am thinking so constantly of him, he is not thinking of me--except as a disagreeable incident--a burr that has somehow got stuck to him, and that he cannot shake off!” She got up and walked about a little, evidently a prey to real mental perturbation. Then she turned suddenly. “Egidia, I want you and him if possible to know this, that I shall not marry him, even if I am divorced for him. I could not, after what you said.” She spoke pettishly, like a child or a schoolgirl, but all the strength and sadness of renunciation was in her eyes. She evidently meant what she said. Egidia realised this, but the complication of her feelings about this little Helen kept her silent awhile. She took her hand, however, and held it, in sign of amity. “I want, Phœbe,” she said presently, “to go out of town for two or three days. Do you think, if I did, that you could amuse yourself--and keep out of mischief?” “You speak to me as if I was ten!” Mrs. Elles said. “I am not sure if I mind? What is mischief?” “Oh, you know--things that might prejudice you--in your new position. I need not mention them--you know the kind of thing?” “Can I go to see the Rembrandts with Dr. André?” “The poor man’s in love with you--but there would be no harm in your going to the Rembrandts with him, I think,” Egidia answered easily. By ten o’clock of the next day she was gone. * * * * * Mrs. Elles felt a really irresistible impulse, to do what she did. “It was as if something called me!” she said afterwards. “I felt that I had to see him.” So two days after the day on which her friend had left London, the dreary gas lamps of Bedford Square fluttered, and the black mud shone prismatically under the feet of a little woman, wandering without judgment or system, round and round the square, enquiring of nodding applewomen, of burly policemen, of scurrying street arabs, and honouring them all with the gracious smile of drawing rooms, the way to No. 99 in that region. “Why, there, Missie, under yer nose,” said the last of the policemen, pointing to the number, written black and jagged over the fanlight of the house near whose very doorstep she was standing. He thought the young lady a little touched in the head; there was indeed a wild look in her eyes, born of the consciousness of her own audacity, and the wild joy of seeing Rivers again. She rang the bell, and a grim, demure-looking Scotch servant--Rivers’ staid old housekeeper, of whom she had often heard--answered it. “Can I see Mr. Rivers?” she asked.