“I’ll make some inquiries” said Miriam cheerfully. Mrs. Bailey thanked her with weary eagerness; she was flushed and flagging; the evening’s work was being cancelled by the fascination which had allowed her to go on talking. She admitted a return of her neuralgia and Miriam, remorseful and weary, made her lie down again. She looked dreadfully ill; like someone else; she would go off to sleep looking like someone else, or lie until the morning, with plans going round and round in her head and get up, managing to be herself until breakfast was over. But all the time, she had a house to be in. She was Mrs. Bailey; a recognised centre. Miriam sat alone, the now familiar little room added to the strange collection of her inexplicable life; its lamplit walls were dear to her, with the extraordinary same dearness of all walls seen in tranquillity. She seemed to be responding to their gaze. Had she answered Mrs. Bailey’s murmur about going to bed? It seemed so long ago. She sat until the lamp began to fail and Mrs. Bailey appeared to be going to sleep. She crept out at last into the fresh still darkness of the sleeping house. On the first floor there was a glimmer of blue light. It was the street lamp shining in through Mr. Shatov’s wide-open empty room. When she reached her own room she found that it was one o’clock. _Already_ he had found his way to some horrible haunt. She wrapped her evening round her, parrying the thought of him. There should be no lesson to-morrow. She would be out, having left no message. * * * * *