’Then I’d do it.  I shouldn’t mind.  There has been this advantage in St. Diddulph’s, that nothing can be triste, nothing dull, nothing ugly after it.’

‘It may be so with you, Nora, that is in imagination.’

’What I mean is that living here has taught me much that I never could have learned in Curzon Street.  I used to think myself such a fine young woman but, upon my word, I think myself a finer one now.’

‘I don’t quite know what you mean.’

’I don’t quite know myself; but I nearly know.  I do know this, that I’ve made up my own mind about what I mean to do.’

’You’ll change it, dear, when mamma is here, and things are comfortable again.  It’s my belief that Mr Glascock would come to you again tomorrow if you would let him.’  Mrs Trevelyan was, naturally, in complete ignorance of the experience of transatlantic excellence which Mr Glascock had encountered in Italy.

’But I certainly should not let him.  How would it be possible after what I wrote to Hugh?’

‘All that might pass away,’ said Mrs Trevelyan slowly, after a long pause.

’All what might pass away?  Have I not given him a distinct promise?  Have I not told him that I loved him, and sworn that I would be true to him?  Can that be made to pass away, even if one wished it?’

’Of course it can.  Nothing need be fixed for you till you have stood at the altar with a man and been made his wife.  You may choose still.  I can never choose again.’

‘I never will, at any rate,’ said Nora.

Then there was another pause.  ‘It seems strange to me, Nora,’ said the elder sister, ’that after what you have seen you should be so keen to be married to any one.’

‘What is a girl to do?’

’Better drown herself than do as I have done.  Only think what there is before me.  What I have gone through is nothing to it.  Of course I must go back to the Islands.  Where else am I to live?  Who else will take me?’

‘Come to us,’ said Nora.

’Us, Nora!  Who are the us?  But in no way would that be possible.  Papa will be here, perhaps, for six months.’  Nora thought it quite possible that she might have a home of her own before six months were passed, even though she might be wheeling the smaller barrow, but she would not say so.  ‘And by that time everything must be decided.’

‘I suppose it must.’

‘Of course papa and mamma must go back,’ said Mrs Trevelyan.

‘Papa might take a pension.  He’s entitled to a pension now.’

’He’ll never do that as long as he can have employment.  They’ll go back, and I must go with them.  Who else would take me in?’

‘I know who would take you in, Emily.’

’My darling, that is romance.  As for myself, I should not care where I went.  If it were even to remain here, I could bear it.’

‘I could not,’ said Nora, decisively.

’It is so different with you, dear.  I don’t suppose it is possible I should take my boy with me to the Islands; and how am I to go anywhere without him?’ Then she broke down, and fell into a paroxysm of sobs, and was in very truth a broken-hearted woman.