Chapter 39 - Page 2

the house they had come to visit.
It was one in a row of small, mean-looking tenements containing two
floors each, and facing other houses of the same description on the
opposite side of the narrow macadamised road, which, with the loose
stones and other rubbish in it, presented a dirty, ill-kept appearance.
At the tenth or eleventh house in the row Mr. Northcott stopped and
knocked lightly at the low front door, warped and blistered by the sun
which poured its intolerable heat full upon it.

A woman opened the door and greeted the curate with a smile; then casting
a surprised look at his companion, stood aside to let them pass into the
narrow, dark, stuffy hallway. "He'll be sleeping just now," said the
woman, pointing up the stairs. "You can just go quietly up. She'll be
there by herself doing of her writing."

"We must go up softly then," he said, turning to Fan. "Poor Chance is
very ill, and sleeps principally in the daytime. That's why I got rid of
the cab some distance from the house."

He led the way up the narrow creaking stairs to a door on the first
landing standing partly open; before it hung a wet chintz curtain,
preventing their seeing into the room. Her conductor tapped lightly on
the doorframe, and presently the wet curtain was moved aside by
Constance, who greeted her visitor with a glad smile while giving him her
hand, but the darkness of the small landing, which had no light from
above, prevented her from seeing Fan for some moments.

"Harold--at last!" she said, her hand still resting in his. "I have
waited two days for you; but I was resolved not to send the manuscript
till you had read it." Then she caught sight of Fan, standing a little
behind him, and started back, a look of the greatest astonishment coming
into her face.

"I have brought you an old friend, Constance," said the curate, stepping
aside.

"Fan--my darling Fan!" she exclaimed, but still in a subdued voice, and
in a moment the two friends were locked in a long and close embrace.

"Constance--what a change! Let me look at your dear face again. Oh, how
unkind of you to keep your address from me all this time!"

The other raised her face, and for some moments they gazed into each
other's eyes, wet with tears. She was indeed changed; and that rich brown
tint, which had looked so beautiful, and made her so different from
others, had quite faded from her pale thin face, so that she no longer
looked like the Constance Churton of the old days. Even her hair had been
affected by trouble and bad health; it was combed out and hanging loose
on her back, and Fan noticed that the fine bronze glint had gone out of