It was daylight when she awoke.  She was cold and her limbs ached.  Slowly her senses came back to her.  The seat opposite was vacant.  The gas lamp showed but a faint blue point of flame.  Her dress was torn, her boots soiled and muddy.  Strands of her hair had escaped from underneath her hat.

She looked at her watch.  Fortunately it was still early.  She would be able to let herself in before anyone was up.  It was but a little way.  She wondered, while rearranging her hair, what day it was.  She would find out, when she got home, from the newspaper.

In the street she paused a moment and looked back through the railings.  It seemed even still more sordid in the daylight:  the sooty grass and the withered shrubs and the asphalte pathway strewn with dirty paper.  And again a laugh she could not help broke from her.  Her Garden of Gethsemane!

She sent a brief letter round to Phillips, and a telegram to the nurse, preparing them for what she meant to do.  She had just time to pack a small trunk and catch the morning train.  At Folkestone, she drove first to a house where she herself had once lodged and fixed things to her satisfaction.  The nurse was waiting for her in the downstairs room, and opened the door to her.  She was opposed to Joan’s interference.  But Joan had come prepared for that.  “Let me have a talk with her,” she said.  “I think I’ve found out what it is that is causing all the trouble.”

The nurse shot her a swift glance.  “I’m glad of that,” she said dryly.  She let Joan go upstairs.

Mrs. Phillips was asleep.  Joan seated herself beside the bed and waited.  She had not yet made herself up for the day and the dyed hair was hidden beneath a white, close-fitting cap.  The pale, thin face with its closed eyes looked strangely young.  Suddenly the thin hands clasped, and her lips moved, as if she were praying in her sleep.  Perhaps she also was dreaming of Gethsemane.  It must be quite a crowded garden, if only we could see it.

After a while, her eyes opened.  Joan drew her chair nearer and slipped her arm in under her, and their eyes met.

“You’re not playing the game,” whispered Joan, shaking her head.  “I only promised on condition that you would try to get well.”

The woman made no attempt to deny.  Something told her that Joan had learned her secret.  She glanced towards the door.  Joan had closed it.

“Don’t drag me back,” she whispered.  “It’s all finished.”  She raised herself up and put her arms about Joan’s neck.  “It was hard at first, and I hated you.  And then it came to me that this was what I had been wanting to do, all my life—­something to help him, that nobody else could do.  Don’t take it from me.”

“I know,” whispered Joan.  “I’ve been there, too.  I knew you were doing it, though I didn’t quite know how—­till the other day.  I wouldn’t think.  I wanted to pretend that I didn’t.  I know all you can say.  I’ve been listening to it.  It was right of you to want to give it all up to me for his sake.  But it would be wrong of me to take it.  I don’t quite see why.  I can’t explain it.  But I mustn’t.  So you see it would be no good.”