because the girl has to work for her living they think she isn’t fit for me to marry.... It’s all a lot of rot.... However––beggars can’t be choosers––and so I’m off to-night.”

Micky looked at him keenly.

“You mean that you’re going without a word to the girl?”

“What can I do?––I went and saw her this morning––we had a rotten scene. I meant to tell her it was all up, but somehow I couldn’t; I’m too dashed fond of her, and that’s the truth. I can’t bear to see her cry––it makes me feel such a cur....”

He waited a moment, but Micky made no comment.

“So the only thing is to clear out,” Ashton went on jerkily. “I can’t afford to quarrel with the mater, you know that.... Perhaps some day....” He stopped. “After all, she can’t live for ever,” he added brutally.

Micky said nothing.

“So I’m off to-night,” Ashton went on with an effort. “I wanted to see you––I knew I could trust you....” He fumbled in a pocket. “There’s a letter here.... I’ve written––I couldn’t see her again. I know I’m a coward, but ... well, there it is!”

He threw the letter down on the table.

“Will you go and see her, old chap, and give her that?” he asked with an effort. “Tell her I––oh, tell her what you like,” he went on fiercely. “Tell her that if I could afford it....”

He stopped again, and this time the silence was unbroken for some minutes.

Then he roused himself and picked up his coat. “Well, I must be getting along. I left my baggage at the station.”

He looked at Micky. “I suppose you think I’m an infernal sweep, eh?” he asked curtly.

“No,” said Micky.

He had always expected that Ashton’s romance would end like this, and he felt vaguely sorry for the girl, though he had never seen her. She must have expected it, too, he thought. She must have known Ashton’s position all along. He followed his friend out of the room.

“You haven’t told me her address,” he said suddenly.

He decided that it would be better to send the letter––he did not want to see her. He hated a scene as much as Ashton did.

Ashton was at the top of the stairs.

“It’s on the letter. What have you done with it?”

There was an irritable note in his voice. “Don’t leave it lying there for that man of yours to see.”

Micky went back into the room. The letter lay on the table where Ashton had thrown it down.

He picked it up, glancing casually at the written address as he did so. Then suddenly his tall figure stiffened, and a curiously blank look filled his eyes, for the name scribbled there in Ashton’s writing was––

“Miss Esther Shepstone,” and, below it, the number of the very horrid boarding-house in the Brixton Road.

Micky stood staring at the envelope in his hand. He felt as if something had happened to paralyse all power of action.

Esther Shepstone and Ashton’s girl from Eldred’s were one and the same; that was all he could grasp, and it sounded absurd and impossible.

He had heard so much of this girl––Ashton had talked about her times without number––Lallie he had called her; now he came to think of it, Micky could not remember having ever heard her spoken of by any other name; and Lallie and Esther Shepstone were one and the same.

Was this, then, why she had cried, because of Ashton...?

Ashton called to him impatiently from the stairs.

“What the deuce are you doing? I shall miss my train.”

Micky roused himself with a start, and, dropping the letter into his pocket, went slowly out of the room; he felt as if he could not have hurried had his life depended upon it; there was an absurdly cold sort of feeling round his heart.

It was ridiculous, of course; it was nothing to him if the girl with whom he had dined an hour ago loved Ashton; he had never seen her before. That sounded an absurd truth, too; it seemed impossible that until this evening he and she had never met.

“For heaven’s sake, hurry up, man,” said Ashton again sharply.

He was at the bottom of the stairs; the face he turned over his shoulder to Micky looked pale and harassed.

Micky quickened his steps and joined his friend in the porch below; they stood together out on the path waiting for a taxicab.

Micky glanced at Ashton with a curious sense of unreality; he felt as if he had never seen him before; it seemed impossible that this Ashton could know Esther––and Charlie!

A taxicab drew up to the kerb; Ashton banged open the door and got in. Micky followed, and they drove some way in silence.

“I’ll take thundering good care I don’t stay away long,” Ashton said suddenly, with a sort of growl. “And if the mater thinks it will make me forget Lallie–––”

“I thought her name was Esther,” said Micky quietly. He was looking out of the window into the starry night.

“So it is––but I always call her Lallie.” He looked at his friend with a sort of vague suspicion. “How do you know what her name is?” he asked.

“I saw it on the letter you gave me.”

Ashton grunted.

“I think it would be better if you posted it to her yourself and have done with it,” Micky said with an effort. “I’m a rotten hand at this sort of thing. It can’t do any good if I go and see her.”

“You said you would go––you might be a sport and stick to your word,” Ashton protested. “I’d do the same for you any day.”

Micky rather doubted it, but did not like to say so.

“If you knew how sick I am about the whole business,” Ashton went on jerkily. “You may not believe me, but I tell you, Micky, that I’d marry that girl to-morrow if only–––”

“If only––what?” Micky asked as he paused.

“Oh, you know! What the dickens can I do without a bob to my name except what the mater chooses to dole out? I tell you,” he went on with a sort of snarl, “it’ll be very different when I get the money. Gad! if only I’d got it now!”

“Money isn’t everything,” said Micky sententiously. “And if you like the girl, why not marry her and face it out?”

Ashton gave a savage little laugh.

“It’s all very fine for you to say that money isn’t everything––that’s only because you’ve got it, and are never likely to be without it. You don’t know what it feels like to be up to your eyes in debt and not knowing where to turn for a fiver. Bah! what’s the good of talking?” He let down the window with a run, turning his face to the keen night air.

They were nearing their destination, and there was still something he wanted to say to Micky which so far, he had been afraid to put into words.

“Well, I suppose I shan’t be seeing you again for a bit,” he said, with rather a forced laugh. “You’ve been a good pal to me, Micky–––”

Micky said “Rot!” rather shortly; he frowned in the darkness; Ashton got on his nerves; he rather wished he had not come to see him off.

“Oh, but you have––whether you like me to say so or not,” the other man went on obstinately. “And––and there’s one last thing I’m going to ask you before I go....”

He waited, but Micky did not speak.

The taxi was turning into the station yard now, moving slowly because of the congested traffic.

“If you could give Lallie some money,” Ashton went on with a rush. “I’d send her some, but I’ve only just got enough to get out