But when Joyce had gone down she did not begin writing immediately.

Turning down the lamp until the room was almost in darkness, she sat with her elbows on the window-sill staring out into the night.
"I never _meant_ to do it!" she kept explaining to her conscience.

"It just did itself.

It seemed all right to listen at first, when they were talking about things I had a right to know, and then I got so interested, it was like reading a story, and I couldn't go away because I forgot there was such a person living as _me_.

But Lloyd mightn't understand how it was.