By this time it was half-past seven by the good gold watch which Poor Father had left her.  Joanna’s plan was to go downstairs, put her letter on the hall table, and bribe the girl to help her down with her box and call a cab, before any of the others appeared.  She did not want to have to face Albert, with inevitable argument and possible reproaches.  Her bruised heart ached too much to be able to endure any more from him—­angry and wounded, it beat her side.

She carried out her scheme quite successfully as far as the cab itself, and then was betrayed.  Poor Father’s watch, that huge emblem of worth and respectability, hanging with its gold chain and seals upon her breast, had a rare but embarrassing habit of stopping for half an hour or so, as if to rest its ancient works.  This is what it had done to-day—­instead of half-past seven, the time was eight, and as the girl and the cabman carried Joanna’s box out of the door, Bertie appeared at the head of the steep little stairs.

“Hullo, Joanna!” he called out in surprise—­“Where on earth are you going?”

Here was trouble.  For a moment Joanna quailed, but she recovered herself and answered—­

“I’m going home.”

“Home!  What d’you mean?  Whatever for?”

The box was on the taxi, and the driver stood holding the door open.

“I made up my mind last night.  I can’t stay here any longer.  Thank you, Alice, you needn’t wait.”  She put a sovereign into the girl’s hand.

“Come into the dining-room,” said Albert.

He opened the door for her and they both went in.

“It’s no good, Bertie—­I can’t stand it any longer,” said Joanna, “it’s as plain as a pike as you and me were never meant to marry, and the best thing to do is to say good-bye before it’s too late.”

He stared at her in silence.

“I made up my mind last night,” she continued, “but I wouldn’t say anything about it till this morning, and then I thought I’d slip off quiet.  I’ve left a letter to you that I wrote.”

“But why—­why are you going?”

“Well, it’s pretty plain, ain’t it, that we haven’t been getting along so well as we should ought since I came here.  You and me were never meant for each other—­we don’t fit—­and the last few days it’s been all trouble—­and there’s been things I could hardly bear ...”

Her voice broke.

“I’m sorry I’ve offended you”—­he spoke stiffly—­“but since you came here it’s struck me, too, that things were different.  I must say, Joanna, you don’t seem to have considered the difficulties of my position.”

“I have—­and that’s one reason why I’m going.  I don’t want to take you away from your business and your career, as you say; I know you don’t want to come and live at Ansdore ...”

“If you reelly loved me, and still felt like that about my prospects, you’d rather give up Ansdore than turn me down as you’re doing.”