A disappointment awaited him. Miss Barfoot was not well enough to see any one. Had she been suffering long? he inquired. No; it was only this evening; she had not dined, and was gone to her room. Miss Nunn could not receive him.

He went home, and wrote to his cousin.

The next morning he came upon a passage in the newspaper which seemed to suggest a cause for Miss Barfoot’s indisposition. It was the report of an inquest. A girl named Bella Royston had poisoned herself. She was living alone, without occupation, and received visits only from one lady. This lady, her name Miss Barfoot, had been supplying her with money, and had just found her a situation in a house of business; but the girl appeared to have gone through troubles which had so disturbed her mind that she could not make the effort required of her. She left a few lines addressed to her benefactress, just saying that she chose death rather than the struggle to recover her position.

It was Saturday. He decided to call in the afternoon and see whether Mary had recovered.

Again a disappointment. Miss Barfoot was better, and had been away since breakfast; Miss Nunn was also absent.

Everard sauntered about the neighbourhood, and presently found himself in the gardens of Chelsea Hospital. It was a warm afternoon, and so still that he heard the fall of yellow leaves as he walked hither and thither along the alleys. His failure to obtain an interview with Miss Nunn annoyed him; but for her presence in the house he would not have got into this habit of going there. As far as ever from harbouring any serious thoughts concerning Rhoda, he felt himself impelled along the way which he had jokingly indicated in talk with Micklethwaite; he was tempted to make love to her as an interesting pastime, to observe how so strong-minded a woman would conduct herself under such circumstances. Had she or not a vein of sentiment in her character? Was it impossible to move her as other women are moved? Meditating thus, he looked up and saw the subject of his thoughts. She was seated a few yards away, and seemingly had not yet become aware of him, her eyes were on the ground, and troubled reverie appeared in her countenance.

‘I have just called at the house, Miss Nunn. How is my cousin today?’

She had looked up only a moment before he spoke, and seemed vexed at being thus discovered.

‘I believe Miss Barfoot is quite well,’ she answered coldly, as they shook hands.

‘But yesterday she was not so.’

‘A headache, or something of the kind.’

He was astonished. Rhoda spoke with a cold indifference. She has risen, and showed her wish to move from the spot.

‘She had to attend an inquest yesterday. Perhaps it rather upset her?’

‘Yes, I think it did.’

Unable to adapt himself at once to this singular mood of Rhoda’s, but resolved not to let her go before he had tried to learn the cause of it, he walked along by her side. In this part of the gardens there were only a few nursemaids and children; it would have been a capital place and time for improving his intimacy with the remarkable woman. But possibly she was determined to be rid of him. A contest between his will and hers would be an amusement decidedly to his taste.

‘You also have been disturbed by it, Miss Nunn.’

‘By the inquest?’ she returned, with barely veiled scorn. ‘Indeed I have not.’

‘Did you know that poor girl?’

‘Some time ago.’

‘Then it is only natural that her miserable fate should sadden you.’

He spoke as if with respectful sympathy, ignoring what she had said.

‘It has no effect whatever upon me,’ Rhoda answered, glancing at him with surprise and displeasure.

‘Forgive me if I say that I find it difficult to believe that. Perhaps you —’

She interrupted him.

‘I don’t easily forgive anyone who charges me with falsehood, Mr. Barfoot.’

‘Oh, you take it too seriously. I beg your pardon a thousand times. I was going to say that perhaps you won’t allow yourself to acknowledge any feeling of compassion in such a case.’

‘I don’t acknowledge what I don’t feel. I will bid you good-afternoon.’

He smiled at her with all the softness and persuasiveness of which he was capable. She had offered her hand with cold dignity, and instead of taking it merely for good-bye he retained it.

‘You must, you shall forgive me! I shall be too miserable if you dismiss me in this way. I see that I was altogether wrong. You know all the particulars of the case, and I have only read a brief newspaper account. I am sure the girl didn’t deserve your pity.’

She was trying to draw her hand away. Everard felt the strength of her muscles, and the sensation was somehow so pleasant that he could not at once release her.

‘You do pardon me, Miss Nunn?’

‘Please don’t be foolish. I will thank you to let my hand go.’

Was it possible? Her cheek had coloured, ever so slightly. But with indignation, no doubt, for her eyes flashed sternly at him. Very unwillingly, Everard had no choice but to obey the command.

‘Will you have the kindness to tell me,’ he said more gravely, ‘whether my cousin was suffering only from that cause?’

‘I can’t say,’ she added after a pause. ‘I haven’t spoken with Miss Barfoot for two or three days.’

He looked at her with genuine astonishment.

‘You haven’t seen each other?’

‘Miss Barfoot is angry with me. I think we shall be obliged to part.’

‘To part? What can possibly have happened? Miss Barfoot angry with you?’

‘If I must satisfy your curiosity, Mr. Barfoot, I had better tell you at once that the subject of our difference is the girl you mentioned. Not very long ago she tried to persuade your cousin to receive her again — to give her lessons at the place in Great Portland Street, as before she disgraced herself. Miss Barfoot, with too ready good-nature, was willing to do this, but I resisted. It seemed to me that it would be a very weak and wrong thing to do. At the time she ended by agreeing with me. Now that the girl has killed herself, she throws the blame upon my interference. We had a painful conversation, and I don’t think we can continue to live together.’

Barfoot listened with gratification. It was much to have compelled Rhoda to explain herself, and on such a subject.

‘Nor even to work together?’ he asked.

‘It is doubtful.’

Rhoda still moved forward, but very slowly, and without impatience.

‘You will somehow get over this difficulty, I am sure. Such friends as you and Mary don’t quarrel like ordinary unreasonable women. Won’t you let me be of use?’

‘How?’ asked Rhoda with surprise.

‘I shall make my cousin see that she is wrong.’

‘How do you know that she is wrong?’

‘Because I am convinced that you must be right. I respect Mary’s judgment, but I respect yours still more.’

Rhoda raised her head and smiled.

‘That compliment,’ she said, ‘pleases me less than the one you have uttered without intending it.’

‘You must explain.’

‘You said that by making Miss Barfoot see she was wrong you could alter her mind towards me. The world’s opinion would hardly support you in that, even in the case of men.’

Everard laughed.

‘Now this is better. Now we are talking in the old way. Surely you know that the world’s opinion has no validity for me.’

She kept silence.

‘But, after all, is Mary wrong? I’m not afraid to ask the question now that your face has cleared a little. How angry you were with me! But surely I didn’t deserve it. You would have been much more forbearing if you had known what delight I felt when I saw you sitting over there. It is nearly a month since we met, and I couldn’t keep away any longer.’

Rhoda swept the distance with indifferent eyes.

‘Mary was fond of this girl?’ he inquired, watching her.

‘Yes, she was.’

‘Then her distress, and even anger, are natural enough. We won’t discuss the girl’s history; probably I know all that I need to. But whatever her misdoing, you certainly didn’t wish to drive her to suicide.’

Rhoda deigned no reply.

‘All the same,’ he continued in his gentlest tone, ‘it turns out that you have practically done so. If Mary had taken the girl back that despair would most likely never have come upon her. Isn’t it natural that Mary should repent of having been guided by you, and perhaps say rather severe things?’

‘Natural, no doubt. But it is just as natural for me to resent blame where I have done nothing blameworthy.’

‘You are absolutely sure that this is the case?’

‘I thought you expressed a conviction that I was in the right?’

There was no smile, but Everard believed that he detected its possibility on the closed lips.

‘I have got into the way of always thinking so — in questions of this kind. But perhaps you tend to err on the side of severity. Perhaps you make too little allowance for human weakness.’

‘Human weakness is a plea that has been much abused, and generally in an interested spirit.’

This was something like a personal rebuke. Whether she so meant it, Barfoot could not determine. He hoped she did, for the more personal their talk became the better he would be pleased.

‘I, for one,’ he said, ‘very seldom urge that plea, whether in my own defence or another’s. But it answers to a spirit we can’t altogether dispense with. Don’t you feel ever so little regret that your severe logic prevailed?’

‘Not the slightest regret.’

Everard thought this answer magnificent. He had anticipated some evasion. However inappropriately, he was constrained to smile.

‘How I admire your consistency! We others are poor halting creatures in comparison.’

‘Mr. Barfoot,’ said Rhoda suddenly, ‘I have had enough of this. If your approval is sincere, I don’t ask for it. If you are practising your powers of irony, I had rather you chose some other person. I will go my way, if you please.’

She just bent her head, and left him.

Enough for the present. Having raised his hat and turned on his heels, Barfoot strolled away in a mood of peculiar satisfaction. He laughed to himself. She was certainly a fine creature — yes, physically as well. Her out-of-door appearance on the whole pleased him; she could dress very plainly without disguising the advantages of figure she possessed. He pictured her rambling about the hills, and longed to be her companion on such an expedition; there would be no consulting with feebleness, as when one sets forth to walk with the everyday woman. What daring topics might come up in the course of a twenty-mile stretch across country! No Grundyism in Rhoda Nunn; no simpering, no mincing of phrases. Why, a man might do worse than secure her for his comrade through the whole journey of life.

Suppose he pushed his joke to the very point of asking her to marry him? Undoubtedly she would refuse; but how enjoyable to watch the proud vigour of her freedom asserting itself! Yet would not an offer of marriage be too commonplace? Rather propose to her to share his life in a free union, without sanction of forms which neither for her nor him were sanction at all. Was it too bold a thought?

Not if he really meant it. Uttered insincerely, such words would be insult; she would see through his pretence of earnestness, and then farewell to her for ever. But if his intellectual sympathy became tinged with passion — and did he discern no possibility of that? An odd thing were he to fall in love with Rhoda Nunn. Hitherto his ideal had been a widely different type of woman; he had demanded rare beauty of face, and the charm of a refined voluptuousness. To be sure, it was but an ideal; no woman that approached it had ever come within his sphere. The dream exercised less power over him than a few years ago; perhaps because his youth was behind him. Rhoda might well represent the desire of a mature man, strengthened by modern culture and with his senses fairly subordinate to reason. Heaven forbid that he should ever tie himself to the tame domestic female; and just as little could he seek for a mate among the women of society, the creatures all surface, with empty pates and vitiated blood. No marriage for him, in the common understanding of the word. He wanted neither offspring nor a ‘home’. Rhoda Nunn, if she thought of such things at all, probably desired a union which would permit her to remain an intellectual being; the kitchen, the cradle, and the work-basket had no power over her imagination. As likely as not, however, she was perfectly content with single life — even regarded it as essential to her purposes. In her face he read chastity; her eye avoided no scrutiny; her palm was cold.

One does not break the heart of such a woman. Heartbreak is a very old-fashioned disorder, associated with poverty of brain. If Rhoda were what he thought her, she enjoyed this opportunity of studying a modern male, and cared not how far he proceeded in his own investigations, sure that at any moment she could bid him fall back. The amusement was only just beginning. And if for him it became earnest, why what did he seek but strong experiences?

Rhoda, in the meantime, had gone home. She shut herself in her bedroom, and remained there until the bell rang for dinner.

Miss Barfoot entered the dining-room just before her; they sat down in silence, and through the meal exchanged but a few sentences, relative to a topic of the hour which interested neither of them.

The elder woman had a very unhappy countenance; she looked worn out; her eyes never lifted themselves from the table.

Dinner over, Miss Barfoot went to the drawing-room alone. She had sat there about half an hour, brooding, unoccupied, when Rhoda ca............