head ... louder and louder ... shriller and yet more shrill ... bird
and cage became misty, swum around her.... Missus and Tim must have
carried her to the bed in which she awoke.



VIII.

Friends in Ireland had given her the addresses of friends in London on
whom she must call. She visited some houses; then in a sudden wild
despair tore the list. Either these people were dense of comprehension
or she clumsy of explanation. To make them realise her position she
found impossible. They were warmly kind, sympathetic--cheery in that
lugubrious fashion in which we are taught to be "bright" with the
afflicted. But when she spoke of the necessity to find employment they
would warmly cry, "Oh, but you must not think of that yet, Miss
Humfray ... after all you have been through.... You must keep quiet
for a little."

One and all gave her the same words. An impulse took her to kick over
the tea-table--anything to arouse these people from their stereotyped
mood of sympathy with a girl suddenly bereaved,--and to cry, "But
don't you _understand_? I am living over a mews--over a _mews_ with
twelve pounds and a few shillings, and then _nothing_--nothing at
all."

Wise, perhaps, had she indulged the outburst without the action; wiser
had she written to some of the friends in Ireland, asked to go back to
one of them for a while. But the dull grief beneath which she still
lay benumbed prevented her from other course than tonelessly accepting