“Where are they?”
“The porter’s wife at the mansions is keeping them for me, I believe. They may be sold. I was too ill to trouble.”
“I ’ll see about them for you,” said Joyce. His heart was moved with great pity for the sweet, helpless little soul. It seemed hard to realise that, when they had met four years ago, he had looked upon her as a Lady Bountiful, who had only to stretch out her kind arm to save him from starvation. Oh, the whirligig of time! And yet the memory of her help was very precious to him.
“You must let me act for you, Yvonne, will you?”
“You have your own troubles, poor fellow,” said Yvonne.
“Yours will drive mine away, so they will be a blessing in disguise. I wonder if you could trust me?”
“I have always done so—and I do. Are n’t you the only friend I have?”
“That is what beats me entirely,” he said. “What are all your friends doing?”
“They have all disappeared gradually,” said Yvonne. “My poor marriage cut me adrift from my old circle. And at Fulminster—I did n’t make many real friends.”
“There was a girl you wrote to me about once or twice.”