Betty, to avoid meeting Noll, had taken her walks abroad in the dusk only; but the restriction began to fret her will; and she had besides been compelled to the conclusion that she must add a few shillings a week to her slender means, or she would soon run through her small capital. She decided to take the loyal Netherby Gomme into her confidence, to put her position before him, and to rely on him to help her in evading Noll and the Baddlesmeres. She hoped, too, that he might get her some post of daily governess or companion to a city family, or some secretarial billet in a city office. She stole out one evening, and watched the Gommes’ house until she felt sure the place was free of visitors. She tripped up the steps at last, plotting what she would say if, by some chance, Noll should open the door. When she rang the bell, she was answered by the old lady, who was grimly rejoiced to see her. Betty put the old lady into a smiling and important mood, almost before the bang of the slammed door had ceased to echo in the gloomy hall, by at once begging her to summon Netherby downstairs to assist them in serious council on a delicate situation. The grim old woman fussed away, important and bustling. Netherby came with a smile on his long pale face, but the happy glint was soon gone, its place usurped by something akin to tears in his solemn steadfast eyes, as his melancholy features took on their habitual lugubrious length and gloom, when he sat down to discuss the situation--solemn promises of alliance and secrecy being sworn and given. He did not dare to tell Betty of the pathetic scenes that he had gone through, in these very rooms, with the youth Noll; indeed, Betty gave him little opportunity, for she showed no sense of grievance, and passed, as lightly as could be, over the scene with Noll’s father; but Netherby’s lips hardened, and showed an unwonted severity during the reserved statement of the details which had driven the girl to flight--he could fill in Anthony’s phrases, and build upon the skeleton of his mind, all so unwitting of its own limitations. But to Betty, the air of this dingy house was cheerful to breathe--there was in its very greyness a note of remembered gaiety--it had sounded as she entered the place, at once she had heard Noll’s feet on the stair, in the hall--she was amongst kindly faces. She was relieved, too, to find that Noll’s day was now very fully occupied with work for a tutor. He was to enter at Magdalen as soon as he could go up to Oxford. She could now extend her hours of freedom and the range of her walks without risk of meeting him. She knew when he would be abroad, and where. During the old lady’s absence from the room, it was arranged between Netherby and Betty that Julia was to come and see her in the evenings as often as could be.