"Ceremony?" She looked at him in a bewildered fashion.

"Yes. They may in all probability affix a tablet to the house, recording the fact that Harry Dorricott once lived here; it's frequently done—there's a society for it. They will probably refer to me then as 'poor Harry Dorricott'—and will say how much greater things I might have done had I lived."

"Mr. Dorricott! You're not ill?"

"Oh dear, no; but I have a sort of feeling that I shall die young—or at least comparatively young. So very many of our best people have done that. I beg you won't alarm yourself, Miss Meggison," he added hastily—"because I'm quite all right at the present moment; never felt better in my life. The only thing that worries me is about you."

"About me?"

"Yes—because you see I'm actually living on you—and that's a shameful thing. Perhaps you may wonder that I don't go away, and live on somebody else—some fat and uninteresting old landlady, for instance, who wouldn't matter so much."

"I shouldn't like you to do that, because she mightn't be kind to you," said Bessie.

"Oh—that isn't the reason," he replied, coming near to her, and looking into her eyes. "You have been kind to me; there's never been anyone in all the world that has done so much for me as you have—helped me, and urged me on, and cheered me up. That's why, although I owe you this money, I can't go away; I'd rather be a slave to you than to anyone else. You didn't understand that—did you,[42] dear?" he whispered, not daring even to take her hands. "From the very first moment, when I saw you looking out of the window into Arcadia Street, my heart gave a sort of jump, and I knew exactly what had happened to me. Bessie—it's because I love you that I can't go away."

[42]

"No—it isn't that; it's only because you're sorry for me, just as quite a lot of other people are sorry for me," she said softly. "You mustn't think that I don't understand, or that I'm ungrateful; I shouldn't be telling the truth if I didn't say that it's quite the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me in all my life. But I don't love anyone—except my father—and Aubrey; I don't think I've got time to love anyone. So you mustn't speak about it again, please; you must forget it. And you can stay as long as you like—and the bill won't matter."

"But you'll give me some better comfort than 

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