“I shall be delighted. Besides, as we live in the same house--or block--my way is yours, in a literal sense, at any rate.” He led the way to the door, and got her her umbrella. “I live so near,” he went on, as they turned down Regent Street, “that when the burden of life becomes really too hard to bear, you can send for me to come in and turn you off neatly.” “I hate that word ‘neatly’!” was all she vouchsafed to reply. He spoke of other things and she answered absently and jerkily. As they drew near Westminster, she said, looking up at him: “I do wish you would trust me!” “Of course I do trust you, in what may I ask?” “You might trust me not to use anything you might give me. I should just keep it by me, the means of Death, as a man keeps a sleeping draught by his bedside, and the knowledge that one can put an end to wakefulness at any moment makes it possible to stand it, don’t you see? I could bear my awful life better--oh, so much better--if I knew I could get out of it at any moment! But nobody understands me--no--not even you.” The accent she contrived to throw on the last words touched him a little. He looked at her keenly but said nothing, and she continued defiantly: “Well, if I am left to my own devices, there’s always the six chemists, and a fourpennyworth of laudanum at each! Oh, I know what one does. I’ve read novels.” “Too many! They are such a perversion of real life. Well, I will see what I can do,” he said slowly. She turned and caught hold of his hand. “You can put it in an envelope, and seal it--with black sealing wax! It will be a bottle, won’t it? A tiny bottle?” “I shall put it in one of those little Venetian tear bottles,” Dr. André said, smiling. “It will be what Browning calls ‘a delicate death.’ But”--his tone was as serious now as she could wish, “you must promise me faithfully not to use it ever! I should be your murderer, do you know? Do you want to hang me?” She promised, smiling at his simplicity. She took his hand more than cordially in the lift that stopped, and deposited him, on a lower floor than hers. “Is it possible that a magnetical rapport can be established between a man and a woman who loves another man?” she thought. “That would explain. At any rate he is kind to me--far, far kinder than Edmund.” She dined alone and cried. Late that night a tiny little parcel was sent up to her from Dr. André. She shivered when she looked at it, and locked it up under two keys. CHAPTER XV Egidia got out of the train at Barnard Castle, as Mrs. Elles had done, months before. She took a fly, and drove four miles to Greta Bridge. She knew every inch of the ground from the description which Rivers and Phœbe had at different times given her of it. She was full of purpose. Jane Anne Cawthorne was the worst enemy of the two that she had taken under her protection--Jane Anne Cawthorne was prepared to swear falsely--Jane Anne Cawthorne’s mouth must be stopped.