Page:Love and Mr. Lewisham – Wells (1899).djvu/177

Rh "That doesn't matter."

She caught at a sob. "But to leave London—I can't do it. I can't."

"But how?—Leave London?" Lewisham's face changed.

"Oh! life is hard," she said. "I can't. They—they wouldn't let me stop in London."

"What do you mean?"

She explained if Lagune dismissed her she was to go into the country to an aunt, a sister of Chaffery's who needed a companion. Chaffery insisted upon that. "Companion they call it. I shall be just a servant—she has no servant. My mother cries when I talk to her. She tells me she doesn't want me to go away from her. But she's afraid of him. 'Why don't you do what he wants?' she says."

She sat staring in front of her at the gathering night. She spoke again in an even tone.

"I hate telling you these things. It is you If you didn't mind  But you make it all different. I could do it—if it wasn't for you. I was  I was helping  I had gone meaning to help if anything went wrong at Mr. Lagune's. Yes—that night. No  don't! It was too hard before to tell you. But I really did not feel it  until I saw you there. Then all at once I felt shabby and mean."

"Well?" said Lewisham.