to-morrow? Neither to-morrow nor any other time. Don't you know I could
not leave you without a friend in this great, careless world?"

Brightie's words are news to herself as she speaks them. She had not
considered the possibility of such a thing before. Here was the
longed-for home open to her, waiting to receive her again. Her one
relation, her own nephew, the same merry-faced Tom of old, dear days,
writing to her begging her to show her forgiveness and go to him to be
cherished all the days of her life. And all this must be
foregone--renounced. She must give it all up, and when Tom comes in two
days, as he said he should, to fetch her, she must withstand his
pleading and send him back alone, and never see the sweet garden and
fresh sea again.

It is one of the cruellest days of bitter March weather. Yet early in
the day after the talk with Brightie, Hazel goes out in spite of the
cutting east wind. Wearily she drags herself about, making one more
effort to dispose of the manuscript of a story she has written, which
was ignominiously returned to her as useless this morning. Hour after
hour she struggles on in a kind of desperation, trying every possible
chance of getting rid of her laborious production. She is fully assured
in her own mind that she will have no opportunity of getting out of
doors, even to try and dispose of it, after to-day for many days to
come. Her growing illness makes that certain. But all efforts are worse
than useless. It is nearing seven o'clock, and growing quite dark, when
she reaches Union-square and stumbles up those endless stairs at length.
For the first two flights the stairs are comparatively broad and
handsome, and they are thickly carpeted; but above they grow narrow and
bare and steep. As she begins to ascend, Hazel meets a lady in a rich
dress. There are preparations, too, in the lower rooms, which betoken