"You'd better leave me. This isn't a nice place for you."
"It isn't a very nice place for anybody. You've let your fire go out. Come upstairs and get warm; we haven't seen you for ages."
He shook his head sadly.
"I can't, Sis, I'm much too seedy."
"Nonsense! You will be, if you sit down here catching cold." She took up her lamp, and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"Come; don't keep me waiting, or I shall catch cold too."
His will was in abeyance, and to her intense relief he got up and followed her.
She was shocked at the change in his appearance when she saw him in the full lamplight of the studio. He was pitifully thin; his fingers, as he held out his hands to the blaze, were pale, even with the red glow of the fire through them. His eyes had lost their dog-like pathos, and had the hard look of the human animal. She got ready some strong coffee, and made him drink it. That, with the warmth and the unaccustomed kindness, revived him. Then she sat down in a low chair opposite him, with some sewing in her lap, so that he might talk to her or not, as he pleased. At first he evidently preferred to think; and when he did speak, it was as if he were thinking aloud.
"I was cut by two men I know to-day. I wonder how many women there are in London who would do what you've done for me to-night?"
"What have I done? I walked into your room without an invitation—I don't suppose many women in London would have done that. But is there any woman in London who has known you as long as I have?"