"I'm not blaming you, young lady." Perhaps Mrs. Bailey had offered advice and been rebuffed in some way. There would be some mysterious description of character; like the Norwegian ... 'selfish in a way I couldn't describe to you'.... "If I'd known what it was going to be I'd not have had her in the house two days." ... some man ... who? ... but they were out all day and Eleanor had been with her every evening. Besides Mrs. Bailey would sympathise with that.... She was furiously angry; "not two days." But she _had_ been charmed. Charmed and admiring. "Did she flirt with some one?" "That" said Mrs. Bailey gravely, "I can't tell you. She may have; that's her own affair. I wouldn't necessary blame her. Everyone's free to do as they like provided they behave theirselves." Mrs. Bailey was brushing at her skirt with downcast eyes. ... This woman had opened Dr. von Heber's letter; knew he was coming next year; knew that he "would not have permitted" any talk at all, and that all her interference was meaningless. _He_ was coming, carrying his suitcase out of the hospital, no need for the smart educated Canadian nurses to think about him ... taking ship ... coming back. Perhaps she resented having been in the wrong. "It was funny how she found a case so suddenly," said Miriam drawing herself upright, careless, like a tree in the wind. She had already forgotten she would always feel like that, her bearing altered for ever, held up by him, like a tree in the wind, everyone powerless to embarrass her. Poor Mrs. Bailey.... "You see I feel I drove her to it, in a way." Mrs. Bailey listened smiling keenly. "Yes you _see_" pursued Miriam cheerfully, "I told her she would be all right for a week. I blamed _you_ for that, said you were flourishing and she could pay when her ship came home." "That's what you told her eh?" "Well and then when she admitted she had no money and I knew I couldn't manage more than a week, I advised her to apply to the C.O.S. She said she would and seemed delighted and when I asked her about it later she cried and said she hadn't been. I said she must do _something_ and then suddenly this case appeared. _Where_ I don't know." "I don't blame her for not wanting to go _there_." "Why?" "My word. I'd as soon go straight to the parish." "Wilberforce believes in them. He says if you really want to help the helpless you will not flaunt your name in subscription lists but hand your money over to the C.O.S. They are the only charitable organization that does not pauperise." "Him? Wilberforce? He has a right to his own opinions I don't deny. But if he'd ever been in difficulties he might change them. _Insulting_, that's my opinion. My word the _questions_ they ask. You can't call your soul your own." "I didn't know that. That friend my sister brought here was being helped by them." "How is Miss Henderson?" "Perfectly happy. Being with the Greens again seems _Paradise_ she says, after London. She's satisfied now."