"Well--I 'ope we gets the vote. It's time we did and better wages. I'm sick of being called 'Skivvy! Skivvy!' by every shop boy in Chalk Farm. We'll make _them_ 'skivvies' by-and-bye! I'm tired o' men--they're all alike! They gets the fun while we slave--it's a dog's life to be a girl!" "Not always." Stephen answered softly. "Not when you're pretty--eh, Letty?" He placed the letter in her hand, and, stooping quickly, stole a kiss. She sprang back with a little cry. Then stood there, her lip quivering, tears not far from her hazel eyes. "I told you ... I wouldn't. Never again!" "Oh! a kiss!--what's a kiss?" He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "There--run away--can't you see I'm busy?" He sat down again at the table. For a moment the child hesitated--for child she was by the test of time--love and resentment struggling within her; then, with tight lips, she flung away. "Good Lord!" Stephen yawned. "Bother the girl. I've turned her head. I'd like to leave these beastly rooms--only there's that confounded bill. And Letty's useful, after a fashion." His eyes fell on the fire. He knew she stole many a lump of coal when his meagre scuttle failed--pitying the improvident man she had made the hero of her dreams; under the spell of his green eyes and careless familiarity. Meanwhile, as he sat and smoked one of Mrs. Uniacke's cigarettes, with which he had carefully filled his case after his last meal with her, the servant crossed Primrose Hill, through the damp evening air, and, gaining the terrace near the park, delivered her lord's begging letter. Jill had not yet returned home. Roddy was far away at school and a silence hung about the house with its dingy blinds and fogged windows. Mrs. Uniacke was upstairs, mending the edge of a shabby skirt that had suffered during a rainy day from a long tramp in a procession. Indeed, the wear and tear of 'the Cause' reflected itself in her very clothes; but the thin face, with its bird-like look of brightness and vivid emotion, its high cheek-bones, and quick flush, was filled with the inner fire of hope. They were getting nearer to their goal. She said the words softly aloud as she bent her frail shoulders over the bed, pinning together the frayed edges. "Pioneers, O Pioneers..." She could hear the throb of marching steps, see at last the faint line of the distant hills where freedom lay. What mattered, then, if the road were long, and the sharp rock cut her weary feet, when on the horizon a new day dawned--an era of justice for her sex? Something achieved, something done... There came a knock at her bedroom door and Lizzie entered with a letter between a dirty finger and thumb. An odd premonition of disaster seized Mrs. Uniacke as she took it. She waited for the servant to go before she broke the careful seal. And, as she read, she gave a gasp. Stephen--leaving her? ... deserting the Cause...? Here was a shattering of her dreams, a swift blow out of the dark.