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Some days before that appointed for the general departure, Halliday received a letter which supplied him with a subject of conversation at breakfast.

“Hunt is going to be married,” he remarked to his wife, just as Rosamund was bringing in the children’s porridge.

Mrs. Halliday looked at her helper–for no more special reason than the fact of Rosamund’s acquaintance with the Hunt family; she perceived a change of expression, an emotional play of feature, and at once averted her eyes.

“Where? In Canada?” she asked, off-hand.

“No, he
‘s in England. But the lady is a Canadian. –I wonder he troubles to tell me. Hunt’s a queer fellow. When we meet, once in two years, he treats me like a long-lost brother; but I don’t think he’d care a bit if he never saw me or heard of me again.”

“It’s a family characteristic,” interposed Rosamund with a dry laugh.

That day she moved about with the gait and the eyes of a somnambulist. She broke a piece of crockery, and became hysterical over it. Her afternoon leisure she spent in the bedroom, and at night she professed a headache which obliged her to retire early.

A passion of wrath inflamed her; as vehement–though so utterly unreasonable–as in the moment when she learnt the perfidy of Mr. Cheeseman. She raged at her folly in having submitted to social degradation on the mere hint of a man who uttered it in a spirit purely contemptuous. The whole hateful world had conspired against her. She banned her kinsfolk and all her acquaintances, especially the Hunts; she felt bitter even against the Hallidays–unsympathetic, selfish people, utterly indifferent to her private griefs, regarding her as a mere domestic machine. She would write to Geoffrey Hunt, and let him know very plainly what she thought of his behaviour in urgingher to become a servant. Would such a thought have ever occurred to a gentleman! And her poor life was wasted, oh! oh! She would soon be thirty–thirty! The glass mocked her with savage truth. And she had not even a decent dress to put on. Self-neglect had made her appearance vulgar; her manners, her speech, doubtless, had lost their note of social superiority. Oh, it was hard! She wished for death, cried for divine justice in a better world.

On the morning of release, she travelled to London Bridge, ostensibly en routefor the north. But, on alighting, she had her luggage taken to the cloak-room, and herself went by omnibus to the West-end. By noon she had engaged a lodging, one room in a street where she had never yet lived. And hither before night was transferred her property.

The next day she spent about half of her ready-money in the purchase of clothing–cheap, but such as the self-respect of a “lady” imperatively demands. She bought cosmetics; she set to work at removing from her hands the traces of ignoble occupation. On the day that followed–Sunday–early in the afternoon, she repaired to a certain corner of Kensington Gardens, where she came face to face with Mr. Cheeseman.

“I have come,” said Rosamund, in a voice of nervous exhilaration which tried to subdue itself.”Please to consider that it is more than you could expect.”

“It is! A thousand times more! You are goodness itself.”

In Rosamund’s eyes the man had not improved since a year ago. The growth of a beard made him look older, and he seemed in indifferent health; but his tremulous delight, his excessive homage, atoned for the defect. She, on the other hand, was so greatly changed for the better that Cheeseman beheld her with no less wonder than admiration. Her brisk step, her upright bearing, her clear eye, and pure-toned skin contrasted remarkably with the lassitude and sallowness he remembered; at this moment, too, she had a pleasant rosiness of cheek which made her girlish, virginal. All was set off by the new drapery and millinery, which threw a shade upon Cheeseman’s very respectable but somewhat time-honoured, Sunday costume.