He waited a moment, but Micky made no comment.
"So the only thing is to clear out," Ashton went on jerkily. "I can't afford to quarrel with the mater, you know that.... Perhaps some day...." He stopped. "After all, she can't live for ever," he added brutally.
"So I'm off to-night," Ashton went on with an effort. "I wanted to see you--I knew I could trust you...." He fumbled in a pocket. "There's a letter here.... I've written--I couldn't see her again. I know I'm a coward, but ... well, there it is!"
"Will you go and see her, old chap, and give her that?" he asked with an effort. "Tell her I--oh, tell her what you like," he went on fiercely. "Tell her that if I could afford it...."
He stopped again, and this time the silence was unbroken for some minutes.
Then he roused himself and picked up his coat. "Well, I must be getting along. I left my baggage at the station."
He looked at Micky. "I suppose you think I'm an infernal sweep, eh?" he asked curtly.
He had always expected that Ashton's romance would end like this, and he felt vaguely sorry for the girl, though he had never seen her. She must have expected it, too, he thought. She must have known Ashton's position all along. He followed his friend out of the room.
"You haven't told me her address," he said suddenly.
He decided that it would be better to send the letter--he did not want to see her. He hated a scene as much as Ashton did.
"It's on the letter. What have you done with it?"
There was an irritable note in his voice. "Don't leave it lying there for that man of yours to see."
Micky went back into the room. The letter lay on the table where Ashton had thrown it down.
He picked it up, glancing casually at the written address as he did so. Then suddenly his tall figure stiffened, and a curiously blank look filled his eyes, for the name scribbled there in Ashton's writing was--
"Miss Esther Shepstone," and, below it, the number of the very horrid boarding-house in the Brixton Road.
Micky stood staring at the envelope in his hand. He felt as if something had happened to paralyse all power of action.
Esther Shepstone and Ashton's girl from Eldred's were one and the same; that was all he could grasp, and it sounded absurd and impossible.