of her was on him.

"Supposing you did? Do you think I would consent to marry such a man as
you?" She held her head very proudly.

"Do you mean that you would refuse?"

"Of course!"

He seemed staggered; he looked about him as one amazed. He had kept this
back as the last, the supreme temptation, the very last card in his
hand; and he had played it, and behold, it proved to be no trump.

"I would neither marry you nor go out with you, nor do I wish to have
anything to say to you, except so far as business is concerned. As that
seems impossible, it will be better for me to give you a week's notice,
Mr. Slotman."

"You'll be sorry for it," he said--"infernally sorry for it. It ain't
pleasant to starve, my girl!"

"I had to do it, I had to, or I could not have respected myself any
longer," the girl thought, as she made her way home that evening to the
boarding-house, where for two pounds a week she was fed and lodged. But
to be workless! It had been the nightmare of her dreams, the haunting
fear of her waking hours.

In her room at the back of the house, to which the jingle of the
boarding-house piano could yet penetrate, she sat for a time in deep
thought. The past had held a few friends, folk who had been kind to her.