“No,” said Vane; “I’ll go across and see how Celia Hartley’s getting on. I’m afraid I’ve been forgetting her.”
“Then I’ll come too. You may need me; there are matters you’re not to be trusted with alone.”
Just then Nairn came down the steps and waved his hand to them. “Ye will no forget that Mrs. Nairn is expecting both of ye this evening.”
He passed on, and they set off together across the city towards the district where Celia lived. Though the quarter in question may have been improved out of existence since, some little time ago rows of low-rented shacks stood upon mounds of sweating sawdust which had been dumped into a swampy hollow. Leaky, frail, and fissured, they were not the kind of places any one who could help it would choose to live in; but Vane found the sick girl still installed in one of the worst of them. She looked pale and haggard; but she was busily at work upon some millinery, and the light of a tin lamp showed Drayton and Kitty Blake sitting near her.
“You oughtn’t to be at work; you don’t look fit,” Vane said to Celia, and hesitated a moment before he continued: “I’m sorry we couldn’t find that spruce; but, as I told Drayton, we’re going back to try again.”
The girl smiled bravely. “Then you’ll find it next time. I’m glad I’m able to do a little; it brings a few dollars in.”
“But what are you doing?”
“Making hats. I did one for Miss Horsfield, and afterwards friends of hers sent me some more to trim. She said she’d try to get me some work from one of the big stores.”
“But you’re not a milliner, are you?” said Vane, who felt grateful to Jessie for the practical way in which she had kept her promise to assist.
“Celia’s something better,” Kitty broke in. “She’s a genius.”