One morning in the middle of the week after this incident the innocent author of it presented herself in Hilary’s study, and, standing in her peculiar patient attitude, made her little statements.  As usual, they were very little ones; as usual, she seemed helpless, and suggested a child with a sore finger.  She had no other work; she owed the week’s rent; she did not know what would happen to her; Mrs. Dallison did not want her any more; she could not tell what she had done!  The picture was finished, she knew, but Mrs. Dallison had said she was going to paint her again in another picture....

Hilary did not reply.

“....That old gentleman, Mr.—­Mr. Stone, had been to see her.  He wanted her to come and copy out his book for two hours a day, from four to six, at a shilling an hour.  Ought she to come, please?  He said his book would take him years.”

Before answering her Hilary stood for a full minute staring at the fire.  The little model stole a look at him.  He suddenly turned and faced her.  His glance was evidently disconcerting to the girl.  It was, indeed, a critical and dubious look, such as he might have bent on a folio of doubtful origin.

“Don’t you think,” he said at last, “that it would be much better for you to go back into the country?”

The little model shook her head vehemently.

“Oh no!”

“Well, but why not?  This is a most unsatisfactory sort of life.”

The girl stole another look at him, then said sullenly: 

“I can’t go back there.”

“What is it?  Aren’t your people nice to you?”

She grew red.

“No; and I don’t want to go”; then, evidently seeing from Hilary’s face that his delicacy forbade his questioning her further, she brightened up, and murmured:  “The old gentleman said it would make me independent.”

“Well,” replied Hilary, with a shrug, “you’d better take his offer.”

She kept turning her face back as she went down the path, as though to show her gratitude.  And presently, looking up from his manuscript, he saw her face still at the railings, peering through a lilac bush.  Suddenly she skipped, like a child let out of school.  Hilary got up, perturbed.  The sight of that skipping was like the rays of a lantern turned on the dark street of another human being’s life.  It revealed, as in a flash, the loneliness of this child, without money and without friends, in the midst of this great town.

The months of January, February, March passed, and the little model came daily to copy the “Book of Universal Brotherhood.”

Mr. Stone’s room, for which he insisted on paying rent, was never entered by a servant.  It was on the ground-floor, and anyone passing the door between the hours of four and six could hear him dictating slowly, pausing now and then to spell a word.  In these two hours it appeared to be his custom to read out, for fair copying, the labours of the other seven.