her first, had no means to pay for another lodging.  She might apply to Doctor Levillier.  What held her back from taking that road was mainly this.  She had the dumb desire to make a sacrifice for Julian, and the doctor had given her the idea of the only sacrifice she could make—­retention of herself from the degradation that kept her free of debt.  If she asked the doctor to pay the expenses of the sacrifice, whose would it be?  His, not hers.  So there was no banker in the world for Cuckoo.  The dead-wall faced her.  The horizon was shut out.  She lay there and tried to think—­and tried to think.  How to get some money?  Something—­the devil perhaps—­prompted the sleeping Jessie to stir again at the bottom of the bed.  Cuckoo felt the little dog’s back shift against her stretched-out toes, and suddenly a bitter flood of red ran over her thin, half-starved face, and she hid it in the tumbled pillow, pressing it down.  The movement was the attempted physical negation of an abominable, treacherous thought which had just stabbed her mind.  How could it have come to her, when she hated it so?  She burrowed further into the pillow, at the same time caressing the back of Jessie with little movements of her toes.  Horrible, horrible thought!  It brought tears which stained the pillow.  It brought a hard beating of the heart.  And these manifestations showed plainly that Cuckoo had not dismissed it yet.  She tried to dismiss it, shutting her eyes up tightly, shaking her head at the black, venomous thing.  But it stayed and grew larger and more dominant.  Then she took her head from the pillow, faced it, and examined it.  It was a clear-cut, definite thought now, perfectly finished, coldly complete.

Jessie was embodied money, an embodied small sum of money.

Long ago Cuckoo had said to Julian with pride: 

“She’s a show-dog.  I wouldn’t part with her for nuts.”

Now she remembered those words, and knew, could not help knowing, that a show-dog was worth more than nuts.  At that moment she wished Jessie were worthless.  Then the sting would be drawn from her horrible thought.  Meanwhile Jessie slept calmly on, warm and cosey.

Cuckoo was cold and trembling.  She knew that she was on the verge of starvation.  The doctor had said that one day she could help Julian, only she.  So she must not starve.  Love alone would not let her do that.  Between her and starvation lay Jessie, curved in sleep, unconscious that her small future was being debated with tears and with horror.

Long ago the little dog had entered Cuckoo’s heart to be cherished there.  Many wretched London women own such a little dog, to whom they cling with a passion such as more fortunate women lavish upon their children.  A great many subtleties combine to elevate companions with tails to the best thrones the poor, the wicked, and the deserted can give them.  A dog has such a rich nature to give to the woman who is poor, so much innocence at hand for the woman who