What should she do?  Should she hide?  Should she raise the sash and shriek to the police?  Should she arm herself with a knife? or—­what?  In the name of mercy, what?  She glared into the street.  He came on steadily, and she lost him, for he passed beneath her.  In a moment she heard the jangle of the bell.  She was petrified.  She heard his heavy step below.  He had gone into the little reception-room beside the door.  He crossed to a sofa opposite the mantel.  She then heard him get up and go to a window, then he walked about, and then sat down; probably upon a red leather seat beside the window.

Meanwhile the servant was coming to announce him.  From some impulse, which was a strange and sudden one, she eluded the maid, and rushed headlong upon her danger.  She never remembered her descent of the stairs.  She awoke to cool contemplation of matters only to find herself entering the room.

Had she made a mistake, after all?  It was a question that was asked and answered in a flash.  This man was pretty erect and self-assured, but she discerned in an instant that there was needed but the blue woollen jacket and the tall cap to make him the wretch of a month before.

He said nothing.  Neither did she.  He stood up and occupied himself by twisting a button upon his waistcoat.  She, fearing a threat or a demand, stood bridling to receive it.  She looked at him from top to toe with parted lips.

He glanced at her.  She stepped back.  He put the rim of his cap in his mouth and bit it once or twice, and then looked out at the window.  Still neither spoke.  A voice at this instant seemed impossible.

He glanced again like a flash.  She shrank, and put her hands upon the bolt.  Presently he began to stir.  He put out one foot, and gradually moved forward.  He made another step.  He was going away.  He had almost reached the door, when Miss Eunice articulated, in a confused whisper, “My—­my glove; I wish you would give me my glove.”

He stopped, fixed his eyes upon her, and after passing his fingers up and down upon the outside of his coat, said, with deliberation, in a husky voice, “No, mum.  I’m goin’ fur to keep it as long as I live, if it takes two thousand years.”

“Keep it!” she stammered.

“Keep it,” he replied.

He gave her an untranslatable look.  It neither frightened her nor permitted her to demand the glove more emphatically.  She felt her cheeks and temples and her hands grow cold, and midway in the process of fainting she saw him disappear.  He vanished quietly.  Deliberation and respect characterized his movements, and there was not so much as a jar of the outer door.

Poor philanthropist!

This incident nearly sent her to a sick-bed.  She fully expected that her secret would appear in the newspapers in full, and she lived in dread of the onslaught of an angry and outraged society.

The more she reflected upon what her possibilities had been and how she had misused them, the iller and the more distressed she got.  She grew thin and spare of flesh.  Her friends became frightened.  They began to dose her and to coddle her.  She looked at them with eyes full of supreme melancholy, and she frequently wept upon their shoulders.