"I'm rather tired," she answered lightly; "I've been troubled lately, the weight of the world----but I'm quite well." Lady Beamish made no answer. Janet could not tell why she had felt an impulse to speak the truth, perhaps just because she was afraid of her, and gave up the task of feeling easy as hopeless. They talked of Gertrude again. Dinner was quickly finished. Instead of going back into the drawing-room, Lady Beamish took her upstairs into her own room. "I'm sorry you have troubles which are making you thin and pale. At your age life ought to be bright and full of romance: you ought to have no troubles at all. I heard that you weren't going to travel with your father, but begin work on your own account: it seems to me you're quite right, and I admire your courage." Janet was surprised that Lady Beamish should show so much interest. "My courage somehow doesn't make me feel cheerful," Janet answered, laughing, "and I can't see anything hopeful in the future to look forward to----" "Why am I saying all this to her?" she wondered. "No? And the consciousness of doing right as an upholding power--that is generally a fallacy. I think you are certainly right there." Janet looked at Lady Beamish, astonished and comforted to hear these words from the lips of an old experienced woman. "I _am_ grateful to you for saying that!" "It must be a hard wrench to begin a new kind of life." "It's not the work or even the change which I mind; if only there were some assurance in life, something certain and hopeful: I feel so miserably alone, acting on my own responsibility in the only way possible, and yet for no reason----" "My poor girl----" and she stretched out her arms. Janet rose from her chair and took both her hands and sat down on the footstool at her feet. She looked up at her handsome face; it seemed divine to her lighted by that smile, and the wrinkles infinitely touching and beautiful. There was an intimate air about the room. "You've decided to go away to Bristol?" "I thought I'd be thorough: I might stay in London and get work; a friend of mine is editor of a lady's paper, and I suppose she could give me something to do; and there are other things I could do; but that doesn't seem to me thorough enough----" The superiority of the older experienced women made the girl feel weak. She would have a joy in confessing herself. "I suppose it was chiefly Gerty's marriage which set me thinking I'd better change. Until then I'd lived contentedly enough. I'm easily occupied, and I felt no necessity to work. But when I was left alone with father, I began gradually to feel as if I couldn't go on living so, as if I hadn't the right; nothing I ever did pleased him. And then I wondered what I was waiting for----" She looked up at Lady Beamish and saw her fine features set attentively to her story; she could tell everything to such a face--all these things of which she had never spoken to anyone. She looked away again.