’Yes.  My aunt died a few months ago.  I am all that is left of my family.’

Mrs. Ispenlove’s eyes filled with tears, and she fingered a gold chain that hung from her neck.

‘But have you got rooms—­a house?’

‘I am at a hotel for the moment.’

‘But you have friends?’

I shook my head.  Mr. Ispenlove was glancing rapidly from one to the other of us.

‘My dear young lady!’ exclaimed his wife.  Then she hesitated, and said:  ’Excuse my abruptness, but do let me beg you to come and have tea with us this afternoon.  We live quite near—­in Bloomsbury Square.  The carriage is waiting.  Frank, you can come?’

‘I can come for an hour,’ said Mr. Ispenlove.

I wanted very much to decline, but I could not.  I could not disappoint that honest and generous kindliness, with its touch of melancholy.  I could not refuse those shining gray eyes.  I saw that my situation and my youth had lacerated Mrs. Ispenlove’s sensitive heart, and that she wished to give it balm by being humane to me.

We seemed, so rapid was our passage, to be whisked on an Arabian carpet to a spacious drawing-room, richly furnished, with thick rugs and ample cushions and countless knicknacks and photographs and delicately-tinted lampshades.  There was a grand piano by Steinway, and on it Mendelssohn’s ‘Songs without Words.’  The fire slumbered in a curious grate that projected several feet into the room—­such a contrivance I had never seen before.  Near it sat Mrs. Ispenlove, entrenched behind a vast copper disc on a low wicker stand, pouring out tea.  Mr. Ispenlove hovered about.  He and his wife called each other ‘dearest.’  ’Ring the bell for me, dearest.’  ‘Yes, dearest.’  I felt sure that they had no children.  They were very intimate, very kind, and always gently sad.  The atmosphere was charmingly domestic, even cosy, despite the size of the room—­a most pleasing contrast to the offices which we had just left.  Mrs. Ispenlove told her husband to look after me well, and he devoted himself to me.

‘Do you know,’ said Mrs. Ispenlove, ’I am gradually recalling the details of your book, and you are not at all the sort of person that I should have expected to see.’

‘But that poor little book isn’t me,’ I answered.  ’I shall never write another like it.  I only—­’

‘Shall you not?’ Mr. Ispenlove interjected.  ‘I hope you will, though.’

I smiled.

’I only did it to see what I could do.  I am going to begin something quite different.’

‘It appears to me,’ said Mrs. Ispenlove—­’and I must again ask you to excuse my freedom, but I feel as if I had known you a long time—­it appears to me that what you want immediately is a complete rest.’

‘Why do you say that?’ I demanded.

‘You do not look well.  You look exhausted and worn out.’

I blushed as she gazed at me.  Could she—?  No.  Those simple gray eyes could not imagine evil.  Nevertheless, I saw too plainly how foolish I had been.  I, with my secret fear, that was becoming less a fear than a dreadful certainty, to permit myself to venture into that house!  I might have to fly ignominiously before long, to practise elaborate falsehood, to disappear.