She turned and ran, choking and blinded, down the staircases that were empty of life to take refuge in a cab and go to her house across the Parks.

There she sat down in the dismantled drawing-room and thought of Dick in his blindness, useless till the end of life, and of herself in her own eyes.

Behind the sorrow, the shame, and the humiliation, lay fear of the cold wrath of the red-haired girl when Maisie should return.

Maisie had never feared her companion before.

Not until she found herself saying, 'Well, he never asked me,' did she realise her scorn of herself.
And that is the end of Maisie.
* * * * * For Dick was reserved more searching torment.