few shillings she had determined to put by out of the total, and had expended it by a visit to the cinematograph show in Victoria Street.  There had been a very touching series of pictures of the “Old Home in the Country,” and the milking of the cows, with a general atmosphere of roses and church-bells, and Gertie had dissolved into tears more than once, and had cried noiselessly into her new pocket-handkerchief drawn from her new hand-bag.  But she had met Frank quite punctually, for, indeed, she had burned her boats now entirely and there was nothing else left for her to do.

* * * * *

At the entrance to Chiswick High Street another brilliant thought struck her.  She paused for Frank to come up.

“Frankie,” she said, “you won’t say anything about the two-pound-ten, will you?  I shouldn’t like them to think—­”

“Of course not,” said Frank gravely, and after a moment, noticing that she glanced at him again uneasily, understood, and fell obediently to the rear once more.

* * * * *

About a quarter of a mile further on her steps began to go slower.  Frank watched her very carefully.  He was not absolutely sure of her even now.  Then she crossed over the street between two trams, and Frank dodged after her.  Then she turned as if to walk back to Hammersmith.  In an instant Frank was at her side.

“You’re going the wrong way,” he said.

She stopped irresolutely, and had to make way for two or three hurrying people, to pass.

“Oh, Frankie!  I can’t!” she wailed softly.

“Come!” said Frank, and took her by the arm once more.

Five minutes later they stood together half-way down a certain long lane that turns out of Chiswick High Street to the left, and there, for the first time, she seems to have been genuinely frightened.  The street was quite empty; the entire walking population was parading up and down the brightly-lit thoroughfare a hundred yards behind them, or feverishly engaged in various kinds of provision shops.  The lamps were sparse in this lane, and all was comparatively quiet.

“Oh, Frankie!” she moaned again.  “I can’t!  I can’t!...  I daren’t!”

She leaned back against the sill of a window.

Yet, even then, I believe she was rather enjoying herself.  It was all so extremely like the sort of plays over which she had been accustomed to shed tears.  The Prodigal’s Return!  And on Christmas Eve!  It only required a little snow to be falling and a crying infant at her breast....

I wonder what Frank made of it.  He must have known Gertie thoroughly well by now, and certainly there is not one sensible man in a thousand whose gorge would not have risen at the situation.  Yet I doubt whether Frank paid it much attention.

“Where’s the house?” he said.

He glanced up at the number of the door by which he stood.