Book 2: Chapter 11 Summary

Lily has been fired from her job, and she wanders the streets aimlessly to avoid the loneliness that plagues her when she stays in her small room at the boarding house where she lives. One day she arrives home to see Mr. Rosedale waiting for her. He is once again appalled at her living conditions, and offers to loan her the money to pay Gus Trenor, in a "plain business arrangement, such as one man would make with another." She once again declines his offer, since it was exactly the type of arrangement that Gus Trenor proposed. He is unable to understand her stubborn refusal of his kind intentions, but the same stubbornness makes her more attractive to him.

Lily takes no sleeping drops that night. She lies awake and ponders the offer that Mr. Rosedale's visit had obviously renewed. She...