When darkness had come down upon the street, Betty drove up to the door of her old home in a cab; she took the hungry tatterdemalion of a cabman upstairs for her baggage; and, whilst the shabby fellow was getting it down and on to the cab, she herself sought out the landlady in her little office. She put the money for her rooms into the hands of the amazed woman, tried to tell her that she was going away, and broke down into a hoarse murmur.
“Go-ing away?” gasped the good creature.
Betty squeezed the old body’s hand. She could say nothing.
“Miss Betty,” said the other—“you mustn’t go away.... What will the house be without you? Pay when you can, my dear——”
But the girl shook her head sadly. She was glad to find that they would only think she had left for lack of means.
The old woman patted her shoulder, thrust back the money into her purse, and said that nothing on God’s earth would prevail on her to touch it. She kissed the unhappy girl; and Betty, making a stern effort to check her sobs, stood up, kissed the old face on each cheek, stepped out into the night, and was gone....
Noll had knocked impatiently at the locked door twice that day, and now as the darkness fell, seeing the door open, he leaped up the stairs, calling Betty by name; sprang through the open door; and came to a sudden halt, bewildered to find the room deserted and dismantled.
He turned roughly to the landlady’s daughter, who stood at the window weeping.
“Where is Miss Modeyne?” he asked hoarsely.
“Gone,” sobbed the girl.