"Well, answer my question. Has Mr. Hart come back?"

 

"Yes—no—I'm sure I can't say. Maybe he's in his room, maybe he's not. You do look dirty, miss, and tired—my word, awful tired. Now, where have you been, Miss Josephine, since early yesterday morning? After no good, I'll be bound. Oh, dear me, yes, after no good! You're a wild one, and you're a daring one; and you'll come to a bad end, for all your eyes are so bright, if you don't mind."

 

Josephine's queer, restless eyes flashed with an angry gleam.

 

"Do you know what this is?" she said, doubling up her small hand, and thrusting the hard-looking fist within an inch or two of her irate landlady's nose. "I knocked a man down before now with this, and I have no respect for women. You'd better not anger me, Mrs. Timms."

 

"Oh, dear no, miss, I'm sure I meant no disrespect!"

 

"That's right. Don't say what you don't mean in future."

 

"I won't, Miss Josephine. Now I come to think of it, I expect Hart is at home; I heard him shuffling about overhead last night."

 

"I'll go up and see," said Josephine.

 

She nodded to Mrs. Timms, and walked slowly, as though she were dead tired, and every step was an effort to her, up the stairs. They were rickety stairs, very dirty and dark, and unkept. Josephine went on and on, until her upward ascent ended under a sloping attic roof. Here she knocked at a closed door.

 

"Come in," said a voice.

 

She entered a long, low room, which did service as a sitting-room, kitchen and studio, all combined. A little, old man with a long, white beard and a bald head was bending over a stove, frying eggs.

 

"Is that you, Nina?" he said, without looking round. "If it is, you may as well fry these eggs while I lay the cloth for supper."

 

"No, you can finish them yourself," replied Josephine. "I'm dead tired. I'd rather eat no supper than cook it."

 

She flung herself into a long, low wicker-work chair, folded her hands and closed her eyes. The old man turned the tail of one eye to glance at her. Then he resumed his cooking, attending to it very carefully, removing each egg, as it was browned, to a hot and clean dish which stood in readiness.

 

"There," he said, at last, "supper's ready. Here's the vinegar, here's the pepper, here's the salt, here's the pewter jug with the beer, here's the bread and butter, and last, but not least, here's your tea, Josephine. You're nowhere without your tea, are you, child?"

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