'Am I? I feel all right.'
Nellie's remark delighted Mildred, 'Then I have a heart,' she thought,
'I'm not so unfeeling as I thought.'
The girls separated at Buckingham Palace. Mildred walked a little way, and then suddenly called a hansom and told the man to drive to Chelsea. But he had not driven far before thoughts of the woman he was living with obtruded upon her pity, and she decided that it would be unwise for her to venture on a second visit. The emotion of seeing her again might make him worse, might kill him. So she poked her parasol through the trap, and told the cabby to drive to Victoria Station. There she bought some violets, she kept a little bunch for herself, and sent him a large bouquet. 'They'll look nice in the studio,' she said, 'I think that will be best.'
Two days after she received a letter from Ellen Gibbs.
'MADAM,—It is my sad duty to inform you that Mr. Ralph Hoskin died this afternoon at two o'clock. He begged me to write and thank you for the violets you sent him, and he expressed a hope that you would come and see him when he was dead.
'The funeral will take place on Monday. If you come here to-morrow, you will see him before he is put into his coffin.—I am, yours truly,
'ELLEN GIBBS.'
The desire to see her dead lover was an instinct, and the journey from Sutton to Chelsea was unperceived by her, and she did not recover from the febrile obedience her desire imposed until Ellen opened the studio door.
'I received a letter from you….'
'Yes, I know, come in.'