“Anything happens!  What do you mean?” Janet’s words had frightened Lise, the withdrawal of Janet’s opposition bewildered her.  But above all, she was cowed by the sudden change in Janet herself, by the attitude of steely determination eloquent of an animus persons of Lise’s type are incapable of feeling, and which to them is therefore incomprehensible.  “Nothing’s going to happen to me,” she whined.  “The place is all right —­he’d be scared to send me there if it wasn’t.  It costs something, too.  Say, you ain’t going to tell ’em at home?” she cried with a fresh access of alarm.

“If you do as I say, I won’t tell anybody,” Janet replied, in that odd, impersonal tone her voice had acquired.  “You must write me as soon—­as soon as it is over.  Do you understand?”

“Honest to God I will,” Lise assured her.

“And you mustn’t come back to a house like this.”

“Where’ll I go?” Lise asked.

“I don’t know.  We’ll find out when the time comes,” said Janet, significantly.

“You’ve seen him!” Lise exclaimed.

“No,” said Janet, “and I don’t want to see him unless I have to.  Mr. Tiernan has seen him.  Mr. Tiernan is downstairs now, waiting for me.”

“Johnny Tiernan!  Is Johnny Tiernan downstairs?”

Janet wrote the address, and thrust the slip of paper in her bag.

“Good-bye, Lise,” she said.  “I’ll come down again I’ll come down whenever you want me.”  Lise suddenly seized her and clung to her, sobbing.  For a while Janet submitted, and then, kissing her, gently detached herself.  She felt, indeed, pity for Lise, but something within her seemed to have hardened—­something that pity could not melt, possessing her and thrusting heron to action.  She knew not what action.  So strong was this thing that it overcame and drove off the evil spirits of that darkened house as she descended the stairs to join Mr. Tiernan, who opened the door for her to pass out.  Once in the street, she breathed deeply of the sunlit air.  Nor did she observe Mr. Tiernan’s glance of comprehension....  When they arrived at the North Station he said:—­“You’ll be wanting a bite of dinner, Miss Janet,” and as she shook her head he did not press her to eat.  He told her that a train for Hampton left in ten minutes.  “I think I’ll stay in Boston the rest of the day, as long as I’m here,” he added.

She remembered that she had not thanked him, she took his hand, but he cut her short.

“It’s glad I was to help you,” he assured her.  “And if there’s anything more I can do, Miss Janet, you’ll be letting me know—­you’ll call on Johnny Tiernan, won’t you?”

He left her at the gate.  He had intruded with no advice, he had offered no comment that she had come downstairs alone, without Lise.  His confidence in her seemed never to have wavered.  He had respected, perhaps partly imagined her feelings, and in spite of these now a sense of gratitude to him stole over her, mitigating the intensity of their bitterness.  Mr. Tiernan alone seemed stable in a chaotic world.  He was a man.