"One of sympathy and friendliness only," he answered. "I never saw her till I took the cheapest room I could find at the top of a gaunt house near the Strand. The rest of the top floor is occupied by this girl and her uncle. He is a socialist agitator, engaged on one of the trades' union papers,--a nervous, unbalanced creature, on fire with strange ideas,--the worst companion in the world for any one. Sometimes he is away for days together. Sometimes, when he is at home, he talks like a prophet, half mad, half inspired, as though he were tugging at the pillars which support the world. The girl and he are alone as I am alone, and there is something which brings people very close together when they are in that state. I found her fallen upon the landing one day and unable to reach her rooms, and I carried her in and talked. Since then she looks for me every evening, and we spend some part of the time together." "Is she educated?" "Excellently," he answered. "She was brought up in a convent after her parents' death. She has read a marvellous collection of books, and she is very quick-witted and appreciative." "But you," she said, "are no longer a waif. These things are passing for you. You cannot carry with you to the new world the things which belong to the old." "No prosperity should ever come to me," he declared, firmly, "in which that child would not share to some extent. With the first two hundred pounds I possess, if ever I do possess such a sum," he added, with a little laugh, "I am going to send her to Vienna, to the great hospital there." She shrugged her shoulders. "Two hundred pounds is not a large sum," she remarked. "Would you like me to lend it to you?" He shook his head. "She would not hear of it," he said. "In her way, she is very proud." "It may come of its own accord," she whispered, softly. "You may even have an opportunity of earning it." "I am doing well enough just now," he remarked, "thanks to Mr. Weatherley, but sums of money like that do not fall from the clouds." They were both silent. She seemed to be listening to the murmur of the stream. His head was lifted to the elm tree, from somewhere among whose leafy recesses a bird was singing. "One never knows," she said softly. "You yourself have seen and heard of strange things happening within the last few days." He came back to earth with a little start. "It is true," he confessed. "There is life still," she continued, "throbbing sometimes in the dull places, adventures which need only the strong arm and the man's courage. One might come to you, and adventures do not go unrewarded." "You talk like your brother," he remarked. "Why not?" she replied. "Andrea and I have much in common. Do you know that sometimes you provoke me a little?" "I?" She nodded.