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engagement. He grew very skilful in slipping out of the hos-
pital unseen. Once, when he went back to his lodgings at
midnight, he saw a woman standing at the area railings and
suspecting who it was went to beg a shake-down in Rams-
den’s rooms; next day the landlady told him that Mildred
had sat crying on the doorsteps for hours, and she had been
obliged to tell her at last that if she did not go away she
would send for a policeman.
‘I tell you, my boy,’ said Ramsden, ‘you’re jolly well out
of it. Harry says that if he’d suspected for half a second she
was going to make such a blooming nuisance of herself he’d
have seen himself damned before he had anything to do
with her.’
Philip thought of her sitting on that doorstep through
the long hours of the night. He saw her face as she looked
up dully at the landlady who sent her away.
‘I wonder what she’s doing now.’
‘Oh, she’s got a job somewhere, thank God. That keeps
her busy all day.’
The last thing he heard, just before the end of the sum-
mer session, was that Griffiths, urbanity had given way at
length under the exasperation of the constant persecution.
He had told Mildred that he was sick of being pestered, and
she had better take herself off and not bother him again.
‘It was the only thing he could do,’ said Ramsden. ‘It was
getting a bit too thick.’
‘Is it all over then?’ asked Philip.
‘Oh, he hasn’t seen her for ten days. You know, Harry’s
wonderful at dropping people. This is about the toughest

Of Human Bondage