When I posted my last letter to you from New York, I meant to come back as soon as I could get money enough to pay my passage.  Since then I have gone through a miserable time, idle for the most part, ill for a few weeks, and occasionally trying to write something that editors would pay for.  But after all I had to borrow.  It has brought me home (steerage, if you know what that means), and now I must earn more.

If we were to meet, I might be able to say something else.  I can’t write it.  Let me hear from you, if you think me worth a letter.—­ Yours ever, dear girl,

L.

For a quarter of an hour she stood with this sheet open, as though still reading.  Her face was void of emotion; she had a vacant look, cheerless, but with no more decided significance.

Then she remembered that Samuel Barmby was waiting for her downstairs.  He might have something to say which really concerned her.  Better see him at once and get rid of him.  With slow step she descended to the dining-room.  The letter, folded and rolled, she carried in her hand.

‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Barmby.’

‘Don’t mention it.  Will you sit down?’

‘Yes, of course.’  She spoke abstractedly, and took a seat not far from him.  ‘I was just going out, but—­there’s no hurry.’

’I hardly know how to begin.  Perhaps I had better prepare you by saying that I have received very strange information.’

His air was magisterial; he subdued his voice to a note of profound solemnity.

‘What sort of information?’ asked Nancy vaguely, her brows knitted in a look rather of annoyance than apprehension.

‘Very strange indeed.’

‘You have said that already.’

Her temper was failing.  She felt a nervous impulse to behave rudely, to declare the contempt it was always difficult to disguise when talking with Barmby.

’I repeat it, because you seem to have no idea what I am going to speak of.  I am the last person to find pleasure in such a disagreeable duty as is now laid upon me.  In that respect, I believe you will do me justice.’

‘Will you speak plainly?  This roundabout talk is intolerable.’

Samuel drew himself up, and regarded her with offended dignity.  He had promised himself no small satisfaction from this interview, had foreseen its salient points.  His mere aspect would be enough to subdue Nancy, and when he began to speak she would tremble before him.  Such a moment would repay him for the enforced humility of years.  Perhaps she would weep; she might even implore him to be merciful.  How to act in that event he had quite made up his mind.  But all such anticipations were confused by Nancy’s singular behaviour.  She seemed, in truth, not to understand the hints which should have overwhelmed her.

More magisterial than ever, he began to speak with slow emphasis.