"I'll be a mark and a laughing stock," said the tragic Cora, "as poor Pussy was before Caradoc made up his mind to marry her. While he was plain Bill Jackson nothing was good enough for Pussy. Used to take her to the Coliseum and on the river in the summer, and used to come to her flat a bit lower down the Avenue to take tea with her and her friends every Sunday of his life. And then suddenly Bill came into the title, and poor Pussy got a miss from my lord. We all thought at first she would go out of her mind. She worshiped the ground that Bill walked upon. Besides, she couldn't bear to be made a mark of by her friends; and being nothing but a straight girl there was always her reputation to consider. Poor Pussy had to take a sleeping draught every night for months. But Caradoc played cricket in the end as he was bound to do, being a gentleman by birth, and Pussy is now a countess with two children, a boy and a girl, and only last summer she invited me to go and spend a fortnight with her at her place in Ireland, but, of course, I couldn't, because I hadn't the clothes. Still, I'm glad for Pussy's sake. She was always one of the best, was Pussy. All's well that ends well, isn't it?" And Miss Jocasta Dobbs very abruptly broke down. It was a breakdown of the most nerve-shattering kind. The tears streamed down her face. She struggled almost hysterically not to give way, yet the more she struggled, the more she did give way. "Miss Dobbs," he gasped, huskily--he had known her a long and crowded year, but he had never ventured on Cora--"Miss Cora"--he had done it now! "I didn't mean nothing." Better had he held his peace. "You didn't mean anything!" There was a change in the voice of Jocasta. "You didn't mean anything, Mr. Harper? No, I suppose not." The young man drew in his breath sharply. The tone of Miss Dobbs was edged like a knife. "It was only a poor and unprotected girl with whom you might play the fool until you had made good. It was only a girl who valued her fair name, a girl who would have died rather than be made a mark of by her friends. I suppose now you are a big man and earning big money, you will take up with somebody else. Well, I'm not the one to grudge any girl her luck." The sudden fall in the voice of Miss Dobbs and the half veiled look in her eyes somehow took Henry Harper back to the Auntie of his childhood. And it almost seemed that she also had in her hand a weapon which she knew well how to use. "I thought I had a gentleman to deal with," said Miss Dobbs, brushing aside a tear, "but it was my mistake. However, it's never too late to learn." Her laugh seemed to strike him.