The night was far gone when she pushed aside her untouched supper, and, wiping her eyes, that she might see properly, sat down to write a letter.
“Dear John Storm (monk, monster, or whatever it is!): I trust it will be counted to me for righteousness that I am doing your bidding and giving up my profession—for the present.
“Between a woman's 'yes' and 'no'
There isn't room for a pin to go,
which is very foolish of her in this instance, considering that she is earning various pounds a night and has nothing but Providence to fall back upon. I have told my jailer I must have my liberty, and, being a man of like passions with yourself, he has been busy blaspheming in the parlour downstairs. I trust virtue will be its own reward, for I dare say it is all I shall ever get. If I were Narcissus I should fall in love with myself to-day, having shown an obedience to tyranny which is beautiful and worthy of the heroic age. But to-morrow morning I go back to the 'oilan,' and it will be so nice up there without anybody and all alone!”
She was laughing softly to herself as she wrote, and catching her breath with a little sob at intervals.
“A letter now and then is profitable to the soul of man—and—woman; but you must not expect to hear from me, and as for you, though you have resurrected yourself, I suppose a tyrant of your opinions will continue the Benedictine rule which compels you to hold your peace—and other things. I am engaged to breakfast with a nice girl named Glory Quayle to-morrow morning—that is to say, this morning—at Euston Station at a quarter to seven, but happily this letter won't reach you until 7.30, so I'll just escape interruption.”
The house was still and the streets were quiet, not even a cab going along.
“Good-bye! I've realized—a dog! It's a pug, and therefore, like somebody else, it always looks black at me, though I suspect its father married beneath him, for it talks a good deal, and evidently hasn't been brought up in a Brotherhood. Therefore, being a 'female,' I intend to call it Aunt Anna—except when the original is about. Aunt Anna has been hopping up and down the room at my heels for the last hour, evidently thinking that a rational woman would behave better if she went to bed. Perhaps I shall take a leaf out of your book and 'comb her hair,' when I get her all alone in the train to-morrow, that she may be prepared for the new sphere to which it has pleased Providence to call her.
“Good-bye again! I see the lamps of Euston running after each other, only it's the other way this time. I find there is something that seizes you with a fiercer palpitation than coming into a great and wonderful city, and that is going out of one. Dear old London! After all, it has been very good to me. No one, it seems to me, loves it as much as I do. Only somebody thinks—well, never mind! Goodbye 'for all!' Glory.”
At seven next morning, on the platform at Euston, Glory was standing with melancholy eyes at the door of a first-class compartment watching the people sauntering up and down, talking in groups and hurrying to and fro, when Drake stepped up to her. She did not ask what had brought him—she knew. He looked fresh and handsome, and was faultlessly dressed.