"Was it necessary to wait until we had actually arrived, before letting us know that you had changed your mind?" She stood on one foot, and drew circles on the road with the other. "Didn't decide myself till just the last minute." "You hadn't taken another place then? I understood from your note--" "I'm staying on with my mother. I may go to a lady at Guildford." Silence. One department of my brain felt an immense relief, the other an immense exasperation. "Then you were free all the time! Doesn't it strike you as wrong and dishonourable to show such a want of concern for other people's convenience?" She muttered. I caught the sound of a few words--"_I'm not the Only One_!" and put on my most dignified air. "However, it is all for the best. You certainly would not have suited us. I hope for your own sake you will learn to keep your word." I walked on, nose in the air, aggressively complacent in appearance, but those words rankled! "_Not the only one_!" Now what did she mean by that? Obviously the insinuation was meant to go home, but how and where had we been to blame? Not in our treatment of the woman herself. We had offered good wages, and to pay for the time she had been kept waiting; yet something had happened which had made her willing to lose money and time, and that something was not another place! I felt puzzled, and, at the bottom of my heart, _worried_ about it all! Later on I paid my first visit to the little draper's shop, and ran the fire of a universal scrutiny from the staff. The "young ladies" knew who I was, and were devoured by curiosity, but it was not a friendly curiosity! Instead of the eager smiles which usually greet a new customer, there was a pursed-up gravity, a stolid attention to business, which was decidedly blighting. At home in Ireland every tradesman was more or less a friend, and what they did not know of Kathie's affairs and mine was not worth hearing. "Pastimes, I believe!" said the sales-woman with the pasty face, when I directed the parcel to be sent home. Was it fancy which read a note of reproach in her intonation? Coming home, I met General Underwood in a bath-chair, being pushed along by a man in livery. He has white hair and a yellow face. He looks tired and ill, and lonely and sad. I'm sure he hates the bath-chair, and fights horribly with his doctor, who insists on fresh air. He rolled his tired eyes at me as I passed, and said something in a low voice to his attendant. I was misguided enough to turn my head, and behold! the Bath-chair was tilted round so that he might look after _me_. The man knew me by sight, and was laying bare the whole horrible truth.