stone to see if it was drier. At last he heard his mistress' step, and
they went into the house together. She lit a candle, and walked to the
Boer-woman's bedroom. On a nail under the lady in pink hung the key of the
wardrobe. She took it down and opened the great press. From a little
drawer she took fifty pounds (all she had in the world), relocked the door,
and turned to hang up the key. The marks of tears were still on her face,
but she smiled. Then she paused, hesitated.

"Fifty pounds for a lover! A noble reward!" she said, and opened the
wardrobe and returned the notes to the drawer, where Em might find them.

Once in her own room, she arranged the few articles she intended to take
tomorrow, burnt her old letters, and then went back to the front room to
look at the time. There were two hours yet before she must call him. She
sat down at the dressing-table to wait, and leaned her elbows on it, and
buried her face in her hands. The glass reflected the little brown head
with its even parting, and the tiny hands on which it rested. "One day I
will love something utterly, and then I will be better," she said once.
Presently she looked up. The large, dark eyes from the glass looked back
at her. She looked deep into them.

"We are all alone, you and I," she whispered; "no one helps us, no one
understands us; but we will help ourselves." The eyes looked back at her.
There was a world of assurance in their still depths. So they had looked
at her ever since she could remember, when it was but a small child's face
above a blue pinafore. "We shall never be quite alone, you and I," she
said; "we shall always be together, as we were when we were little."

The beautiful eyes looked into the depths of her soul.