“What can I do? I will not give her up.”
“I never interfere. I have quite enough worries of my own. I must be getting home. It is very late. Good-bye.”
The green was as bright as day in the moonlight and Frank watched Willy walking, his shoulders thrown back. He sighed; an undefinable, but haunting melancholy hung about Willy; he often impressed Frank as an old book—a book whose text is trite—which no one will read, and which yet continues to make its mute appeal; a something that has always missed its way, that can hardly be said to be an adequate thing to offer for any man's money, that will soon disappear somehow out of all sight and reckoning.
XV
A few days after he got a letter from Lizzie, saying she was alone and ill, and asking him to come and see her. He took the next train to Brighton. The land-lady's daughter, a girl of about twelve, opened the door to him.
“How is Miss Baker? Is she any better?”
“Please, sir, she is not at all well, she has cold shivers; and mother went away yesterday.”
“And who looks after Miss Baker?”