“What is it?  But, Edmund, you know you have done too much for my poor works already; I can’t let you.”

“Never mind, if you will do what I want.”

“What is it?”

“Come right away in the yacht, you and your mother, and we’ll go wherever you like.”

Joy sprang into her face, but then he saw doubt, and he knew with a deep pang what the doubt meant.  He wished to move, oh! so carefully now, or he would lose all the ground he had lately gained.

“What scruples have you now?” he asked laughing.  “What a genius you have for them!  Look here, Rose, it’s common sense; you want a change, you can let the house up to Easter.  Besides, you know what it would do for your mother; see what she thinks.”

“It’s all so quick,” gasped Rose, laughing.

“Well, then, don’t settle at once if you like; but not one penny for those poor dear little orphans if you don’t come.  And now, I want to say something else quick, because the tray with the chops and the cheese and the tea will all be getting greasy if I don’t get out of the way.  Do you know I think I was very hard on that Miss Dexter.  I remember I solemnly warned you not to have to do with her.  You were quite right:  it is not healthy to think so much of that will; it poisons the mind.  I am quite sure that poor thing is not to blame.”

His tone was curiously eager, it seemed to Rose; and then he began discussing Miss Dexter, and said he thought that at moments she was beautiful.  Presently he remembered the tray that was coming, and saw that the hour was half-past seven, and hurried away.  She fancied that she missed in his “Good-night” the sort of gentle affectionateness he had shown her so freely of late.

She went up to her room to prepare for the meal he had disparaged so much, looking tired.  She smiled rather sadly when she had to own to herself that the tray of supper was almost exactly what Edmund had foretold.  She dismissed it as soon as she could, and then drew a chair up to the fire and took up a book.  But it soon dropped on to her knee.  She had been trying not to give way to depression all that day.  But it was very difficult.  There seemed to be so little object in life.  She felt as if everything had got into a fog; there was no one at home to whom her going and coming mattered any more than the meals mattered.  And, meanwhile, she was being sucked into a world of committees and sub-committees.  She had thought that, as she could no longer give money, she would give her time and her work; so, when asked, she had joined many things just because she was asked, and she was a little hazy as to the objects of some of them.  Having been afraid that she would not have enough to do, she found now that she had already more than she could manage.  And everything seemed so difficult.  During the past week she had twice taken the wrong bus, and come home very wet and tired.  Another day she had taken the wrong train when coming back from South London,