"You are a woman--you understand these things. Is there any way in which I can help? It's pretty tough to see an old friend worried to death, and just sit and look on--but Thorold's proud, and it's difficult to interfere. It seems a cruel thing that illness should fall so heavily upon the middle classes. The rich are independent, the poor have hospitals; but a man in Thorold's position is no sooner through with the mental torture than he is up against an army of bills. It seems that Billie is bound to keep his nurses for several weeks longer. That's a big item in itself." It was! Often during these last weeks I had thought to myself what a grand occupation it would be for an independent woman to train as a nurse, and then give one or two doctors leave to call her in to serve-- without payment--in cases like the present, where need was great and means were small. I went off into a day-dream in which I saw myself, in cap and apron, acting as ministering angel to the suffering middle class, to be roused by Mr Hallett's voice saying tentatively:-- "I'm a poor man, but I am alone in the world, so there's no object in saving. Why shouldn't I settle a few of the bills for Billie's illness and say nothing about it?" I shook my head. "Mr Thorold would find out and be furious. You must help openly, or not at all. You have helped by keeping him company all these weeks." He hitched his shoulders, and made a grimace of disparagement. "It's a long time since my company could be called cheering, I'm afraid. Thorold is `down and out' himself, and he ought to have happy people about him." He turned his dark eyes upon me with sudden interest. "Like _you_!" he said emphatically, "like _you_! Excuse a personal remark, Miss Harding, but you seem to have an eternal flow of vitality. Thorold and I were talking about you last night, comparing you with other women of your--er--your generation. We agreed that you left an extraordinary impression of youth!" He looked at me with wistful eyes. He was a lonely man, and I was a woman, conveniently at hand, and possessed of a "feeling heart". An impulse towards confidence struggled to birth. In his eyes I could see it grow. "I suppose," he began tentatively, "you have had an easy life?" "In a material sense--yes! But I have had my trials." A wave of self-pity engulfed me and quivered in my voice. "I have been separated, by death or distance, from all my relatives. My best friend is abroad." "Death--or distance!" he repeated the words in his deep, slow tones, as though they had struck a note in his own heart. "But distance _is_ death, Miss Harding! The worst kind of death. Desolation without peace! Thorold thinks himself brokenhearted, but there are men who would envy him his clean, sweet grief. His sorrow is for himself alone. She is at peace!"