"Go!" said Janet. "But, of course, you must stop. Mr Brand has come down on purpose to see us."
She went forward to meet him, and, as he took her hand somewhat stiffly, he met the tender sympathy in her clear eyes, and winced under it.
His face became a shade less rigid. He looked shrunk and exhausted, as if he had undergone the extreme rigour of a biting frost. Perhaps he had.
"I have come to see you on business," he said to Janet, hardly returning Fred's half nervous, half defiant greeting.
Janet led the way into the little parlour, and they sat down in silence. Fred sat down near the door, and began picking at the rose in his buttonhole.
Monkey Brand held his hat in his hand. He took off one black glove, dropped it into his hat, and looked fixedly at it.
The cloud on Janet's horizon lay heavy over her whole sky. A single petal, loosened by a shaking hand, fell from Fred's rose on to the floor.
"I am sure, Miss Black," said Monkey Brand, "that you will offer me an explanation respecting your visit to my flat when my wife was dying."
"I went up at her wish," said Janet, breathing hard. She seemed to see again Cuckoo's anguished fading eyes fixed upon her.
"Why?"