“Ah, Harry, that is so easily said.  People do not think of such things if they can help themselves.  The place is full of him and his memories; full of him, though I do not as yet know whether he ever put his foot in it.  Do you know, I have a plan, a scheme, which would, I think, make me happy for one half-hour.  It is to give everything back to the family.  Everything! money, house, and name; to call myself Julia Brabazon, and let the world call me what it pleases.  Then I would walk out into the streets, and beg some one to give me my bread.  Is there one in all the wide world that would give me a crust?  Is there one, except yourself, Harry—­one, except yourself?”

Poor Florence!  I fear it fared badly with her cause at this moment.  How was it possible that he should not regret, that he should not look back upon Stratton with something akin to sorrow?  Julia had been his first love, and to her he could have been always true.  I fear he thought of this now.  I fear that it was a grief to him that he could not place himself close at her side, bid her do as she had planned, and then come to him, and share all his crusts.  Had it been open to him to play that part, he would have played it well, and would have gloried in the thoughts of her poverty.  The position would have suited him exactly.  But Florence was in the way, and he could not do it.  How was he to answer Lady Ongar?  It was more difficult now than ever to tell her of Florence Burton.

His eyes were full of tears, and she accepted that as his excuse for not answering her.  “I suppose they would say that I was a romantic fool.  When the price has been taken one cannot cleanse oneself of the stain.  With Judas, you know, it was not sufficient that he gave back the money.  Life was too heavy for him, and so he went out and hanged himself.”

“Julia,” he said, getting up from his chair, and going over to where she sat on a sofa, “Julia, it is horrid to hear you speak of yourself in that way.  I will not have it.  You are not such a one as the Iscariot.”  And as he spoke to her, he found her hand in his.

“I wish you had my burden, Harry, for one half day, so that you might know its weight.”

“I wish I could bear it for you—­for life.”

“To be always alone, Harry; to have none that come to me and scold me, and love me, and sometimes make me smile!  You will scold me at any rate; will you not?  It is terrible to have no one near one that will speak to one with the old easiness of familiar affection.  And then the pretence of it where it does not, cannot, could not, exist!  Oh, that woman, Harry; that woman who comes here and calls me Julie!  And she has got me to promise too that I would call her Sophie!  I know that you despise me because she comes here.  Yes; I can see it.  You said at once that she was not wholesome, with your dear outspoken honesty.”

“It was your word.”