“He was a friend,” Julia said; “that was quite right.  And so he came for my address.  When was this?”

Johnny gave the approximate date, and Julia asked:  “Why did he come to you?”

Mr. Gillat did not quite know unless it was because he had failed elsewhere.  “But he really came to see your father,” he said.

“Did he see him?” Julia inquired.

“No, he was out.  To tell the truth, I don’t believe your father ever knew he came,” Johnny confessed; “I meant to tell him, of course, but he was late home that day, and when he came he was—­was—­well, you know, he couldn’t—­it didn’t seem—­”

“Yes,” said Julia, coming to the rescue, “he was drunk and could not understand, and afterwards you forgot it; it does not matter; indeed, it is better so; I am glad of it.”

Mr. Gillat was fumbling in his shabby letter-case; he took out a card; it bore Rawson-Clew’s name and address of a London club.

“He gave me this,” he said, “and told me to let him know if I heard from you, if you were in any trouble, or anything—­if I thought you were.”

Julia held out her hand.  “You had better give it to me,” she said; “I’ll let him know all that is necessary.  Thank you;” and she put the card away.

Soon after she went to her room, for it was growing late.  But she did not hurry over undressing; indeed, when she sat down to take off her stockings, she paused with one in her hand, thinking of Rawson-Clew.  So he had tried to find out where she was; he did not then accept her answer as final; he was bent on seeing that she came to no harm through him—­honourable, certainly, and like him.  He had come to Berwick Street and nearly seen her father—­drunk; quite seen Mr. Gillat, in the first floor sitting-room certainly, but no doubt shabby and not very wise as usual.  She was not ashamed; though for a moment she had been glad he had missed her father; now she told herself it did not matter either way.  He knew what she was and what her people were; what did it matter if he realised it a little more?  They were not of his sort, it was no good pretending for a moment that they were.  His sort!  She laughed silently at the thought.  The girls of his sort eating steak and onions in a back bedroom with Johnny Gillat!  Caring for Johnny as she cared, liking to sit with him in the pokey little room while he smoked Dutch cigars; not doing it out of kindness of heart and charity, but finding personal pleasure in it and a sense of home-coming!  If Rawson-Clew had come that evening while they were at supper, or while she cured the smoky fire or mended the blind, or while they sipped black coffee out of earthenware breakfast-cups and talked of her father’s delinquencies!  It would not have mattered; he knew she was of the stoke-hole—­she had told him so—­and not like the accomplished girls whom he usually met—­who could not have got him the explosive!