When darkness had come down upon the street, Betty drove up to the door of her old home in a cab; she took the hungry tatterdemalion of a cabman upstairs for her baggage; and, whilst the shabby fellow was getting it down and on to the cab, she herself sought out the landlady in her little office. She put the money for her rooms into the hands of the amazed woman, tried to tell her that she was going away, and broke down into a hoarse murmur. “Go-ing away?” gasped the good creature. Betty squeezed the old body’s hand. She could say nothing. “Miss Betty,” said the other--“you mustn’t go away.... What will the house be without you? Pay when you can, my dear----” But the girl shook her head sadly. She was glad to find that they would only think she had left for lack of means. The old woman patted her shoulder, thrust back the money into her purse, and said that nothing on God’s earth would prevail on her to touch it. She kissed the unhappy girl; and Betty, making a stern effort to check her sobs, stood up, kissed the old face on each cheek, stepped out into the night, and was gone.... Noll had knocked impatiently at the locked door twice that day, and now as the darkness fell, seeing the door open, he leaped up the stairs, calling Betty by name; sprang through the open door; and came to a sudden halt, bewildered to find the room deserted and dismantled. He turned roughly to the landlady’s daughter, who stood at the window weeping. “Where is Miss Modeyne?” he asked hoarsely. “Gone,” sobbed the girl. “Where?” She shook her head: “No one knows, Mr. Noll.” Noll went to the little bed, flung himself down beside it, and sobbed like a child.... The landlady’s daughter slipped a-tiptoe from the room and brought down the young fellow’s mother. Caroline went and seated herself on the bed beside the lad, and stroked the handsome head with her gentle fingers: “Ah, Noll,” said she--“so you too are to taste the bitters of life early!” The young fellow stayed by the bed all night, and would not be comforted. And Caroline most wisely stayed with him. CHAPTER XXVIII _Wherein Dawning Womanhood whispers that Dolls are Dolls_ Betty, listless and lonely, and in hiding, had not been long in her new-found attic when she won the wan smile of a little old faded lady who lived in the room below. They met on the stairs; and a smile bred a smile. A formal invitation to tea from the little old faded lady followed. The little scented note bore the signature of Flora Jennyns.... When Betty entered the room, and shut the door, she shut out half a century. Miss Flora Jennyns, rustling in full-skirted silks, had the atmosphere of crinolines round and about her; the room was fresh and sweet, and fragrantly quaint and stilted, and of the early Victorian years.