It was in Lower Sloane Street--there is a little naturalist's shop thereabouts--that I stopped, once more facing her. It seemed to me that there was something which, if she didn't know it, she ought to know.
"Louie," I said slowly, putting a hand on her shoulder to turn her face towards mine, "I don't know whether you know what you ought to do?"
I saw that she did know. For the first time I saw a return of her old ironical smile. But "What's that?" she asked.
"What, unless you do to me, I can now equally do to you."
"There are no accessories in this business. You're a principal too."
She laughed outright. "All right, Jim," she said. "I'll trust you not to give me away."
That was exactly what she would not do. She cut in brusquely.
"Oh, my good man, be quiet! Anybody'd think you thought I was going to blackmail you!" Then, leaning heavily on me once more, "I suppose all you men take that view of it," she went on, with an energy that triumphed momentarily over her fatigue, "but here's _my_ view if you must have it--that men deserve rewards who stamp out creatures like that! Oh, you needn't look at me--_I'm_ experienced if anybody is, and _I_ know why young men hang themselves just before their weddings! And that, Jim--come along, it's no good standing here--that's why I asked you whether you'd told Evie. You know your own business best, but I'll tell you this--that if women were on juries not a jury in the land would convict you! _Oh!_----" She shuddered the more strongly that she earned her daily bread in the way she did. "_I_ can face these things. I've learned--I've had to. Am I the same woman you once knew? I think not. And I tell you plainly, that if you'd done what you have done for me I'd kiss your feet and ask you to bless me! But of course there's Evie. I don't know why you haven't told her: I don't know her very well, you see. My own opinion is that you'll find you've got to tell her. I'm sure that sooner or later you'll find that. And that reminds me of something else. What do you suppose you ought to do about Kitty?"
I smothered a groan. "Oh, I'm past supposing," I answered dully.
"Poor man!... Well, this is how it is. Kitty's unreliable. She has these outbreaks. I hope she'll be better with me, but I can't answer for that. So--I'm only preparing you, Jim, but it _may_ come to this, that before she gets it fixed in her head once for all that young Merridew _didn't_ hang himself she's got to be made quite certain that he _did_. Even if she's got to be told so she must be made certain of that. And I shall be greatly surprised if you haven't to tell Evie exactly the opposite. _Voilà!_"