lide. Branches are cut from the trees for my fire here, and sometimes I crouch over an oil stove, and sometimes, even, take refuge with Joseph in the kitchen. Oh, it is a miserable existence in the winter! But there are the animals. My landlady is fond of animals, and they are companions for me. A dog; a cat; a hare; all originally unfortunates; wounded, trapped, pursued; she finds them by an unerring instinct; even Coco was dying of a skin disease in a dirty shop in Bordeaux. We have cured him of that, and you see how intelligent he is. And I have books.—Not those.—She sends me books from Bordeaux. I devour them; romances, biographies, travels. So the time passes and in the spring she returns. Then it is not so bad. I have somebody to talk to.'
'And don't your southern windows look over the garden?' said Jill, always interested in aspects and utilities. 'May we see your garden before we go? The door at the end of the hall leads out, doesn't it?'
'Ah, it is nothing, the garden—nothing; but it has the southern aspect, that is true; and our bedrooms look over it; we preferred that to the larger, colder rooms on this side of the house. They are kept closed. They are haunted, I always feel. I never enter them. But you will not go so soon?'
'It's getting rather late. I'm afraid we must. You will see us again in the spring.' Jill was very sorry for the old lady and something in Graham's detached and smiling demeanour seemed to her a little inhuman. But Dick often struck her as rather inhuman. She
