"But am I?" Her wistful tone craved for reassurance and Herrick gave it promptly.

"If by 'lady' you mean a woman who is fit to mix with any one in the land, yes," he said. "Of course you are."

She gave him a wan little smile, and dried away a few tears with the aid of his handkerchief.

"I don't know where mine is," she said, half-crying, half-laughing. "I must have dropped it somewhere."

"Or the Boo-Boos took it." He smiled at her puzzled expression. "Don't you know those dreadful little people—the people who hide one's pencils and one's handkerchiefs, put the clock back so that one misses one's train—or an appointment—and invariably send an organ-grinder outside one's window when one is hard at work and can't bear a noise!"

"But why do you call them Boo-Boos?" She might have been a child asking for the explanation of a fairy-tale.

"Well, they aren't Brownies, because they are a good little folk. And the Pixies, though their tricks are much the same, pursue their avocations out of doors on moor or hill; so that the only name I could find for them was just that—Boo-Boos!"

He laughed at her bewildered face.

"Come, Mrs. Rose, don't you ever feel conscious of their teasing presence? Don't you lose your hair-pins, or your brooches, or whatever corresponds to our collar-studs? And have you never noticed how a pen with which you are about to sign an important document, a will or something of the kind, has changed mysteriously into a pencil—generally without a point—when you pick it up?"

He had succeeded in his intention. His nonsense had won her to a smile; and the eyes which a few moments before had looked like those of a tortured woman were once again the eyes of a child.

"Do you know, Mrs. Rose"—Herrick felt there was danger in prolonging the situation once she had attained a comparative serenity—"I'm afraid it's going to rain! Don't you think we had better be moving homewards?"

She rose at once.

"Just as you like." She spoke with the utmost docility. "I suppose we had better go. I haven't an umbrella—have you?"

"No—and your dress is thin." He looked at her white gown, which had not been improved by her incarceration in the mouldy summer-house, and showed traces of the dust and dirt of the bench on which she had crouched while the two women talked outside. Altogether Toni presented a pathetic little figure; and Herrick felt a sudden desire to know her safely at home, hidden from inquisitive eyes.

He called Olga, who had been playing an enticing game of hunting quite imaginary rabbits in the hedgerow; and when the great dog bounded up in obedience to his summons, he jumped over the stile and held out his hand to help Toni. She climbed over rather lifelessly, catching her white skirt on a splinter of wood and tearing a rent which filled Herrick with dismay.

"You've torn your pretty dress! What a shame—will it be quite spoilt?"

"Oh no, I can mead it," she returned indifferently, "and any way it doesn't matter." To Toni nothing mattered just then.

"That wretched splinter was to blame. I'm afraid I didn't notice it," he said contritely.

"Oh, it wasn't your fault. Perhaps it was one of your queer creatures, the Boo-Boos," said Toni with a wintry attempt at a smile; and Herrick was struck with the readiness with which she had adopted his whimsical theory.

As they went across the fields beneath the now cloudy sky, he tried to keep the conversation at the same light level; but although Toni strove to adapt herself to his mood, it was evident that her thoughts were still circling round the revelation which had shattered her fairy castle; and just as the chimneys of Greenriver came in sight above the tall tree-tops, she asked him a question which had been formulating in her mind throughout the walk homewards.

"Mr. Herrick, do you think I could improve myself somehow—I mean could I read some books, or do something to make myself a more suitable wife for Owen? You know"—she caught her breath—"I can't bear for him to be ashamed of me, or bored with me—and they said—those women, that he was both."

For a second Herrick thought of treating the matter lightly, assuring her that what the women had said was of no importance whatever. Then he knew there was only one course open to him, and he met sincerity with sincerity, candour with candour.

"It would be very easy for you to do a little reading," he said quietly. "Of course a literary man like Mr. Rose forgets that everyone has not his fine taste in books; and on the other hand, it is very easy to acquire a liking for poor stuff. But there are lots of authors who would delight you with their books, and if I can give you any help I shall be charmed to make you out a list."

"Will you?" Her eyes lighted up for a second. "There are hundreds of books in the house—the library is supposed to be rather remarkable, you know, and I expect lots of the books you mean are there."

"I've no doubt of it." He remembered hearing of the unique collection which Greenriver housed. "Tell me what sort of books you like? Travel, history, romance—what?"

The light died out of her eyes.

"I don't know." Her voice sounded flat. "I don't think I like anything much—except stories. Novels, I mean," she added hastily.

"Well, there are plenty of very fine novels," he said cheerily. "And no one need be ashamed of liking that form of story-telling. I always fail to understand the attitude of the person who says 'I never read novels!' as though he were claiming a tremendous superiority, whereas he's only showing himself a narrow-minded and unimaginative person!"

"But reading novels won't make me clever?" said Toni rather wistfully.

"Well, probably not, if you read nothing else," he owned. "But there is plenty more stuff for you to read. What about poetry?"

She shook her head.

"Well, you'll soon get to like it," he said smiling. "You needn't flesh your maiden sword in Browning, you know. Anyway, I will send you a list, shall I?—of books that I think you'll like. Can you read French?"

Blushing, she confessed her inability to do more than recognize a French quotation here and there; and a new thought filled her mind.

"Do you think if I were to study French, Mr. Herrick? I've got all my old books, and I could do an exercise every day."

Herrick was half inclined to smile, but she was so desperately in earnest that he refrained.

"A capital plan," he said heartily, thinking to himself that the harder she worked the less time she would have for fretting.

"And if I got to know more poetry I might be able to help Owen with his articles," she said, smiling happily, reassured by his friendly counsel. "Of course they were quite right—I am stupid and ignorant, but if I work hard I think I ought to be able to make myself useful to Owen, oughtn't I, Mr. Herrick?"

"Don't work too hard," he said, half jesting, half in earnest. "You don't want to turn yourself into a blue-stocking, do you? Don't over-develop your brain at the expense of your heart and soul, as so many learned women have done—to their ultimate despair."

"There's no fear of that." Toni spoke in a low voice, and again he caught a glimpse of something disconcerting in her clear eyes. "Those women said I had no soul. But that's nonsense, because everyone has a soul."

"But not everyone realizes it," he said. "Some people go through life and never know they have more than a body, which claims attention while the soul waits, yearningly, for recognition."

He had spoken half to himself, his thoughts wandering for a moment from the girl beside him to another girl whose soul had been, to him at least, as a sealed book.

"I have been like that," said Toni surprisingly. "But I have a soul—and for Owen's sake I am going to prove it. Only"—she faltered find her brave accents died away—"perhaps it is too late, after all."

* * * * *

And though, when he left her at her own door, refusing her invitation to enter, she had regained much of her usual manner, her last words haunted Herrick all through the long, lonely evening.

He knew quite well that there was a good deal of truth in the accusation brought against the shrinking Toni. Although he lived a solitary life, it was impossible altogether to avoid contact with one's neighbours along the river; and he had heard sundry bits of conversation concerning Toni which went to prove that Owen Rose's choice of a wife was freely criticized in the neighbourhood. People agreed that she was certainly surprisingly pretty, but she did not belong to the class which filled all the big houses round about. The charitable said she was shy, the malicious called her gauche, without perhaps knowing exactly what they meant; and everyone who had talked to her asserted that she had no conversation, and did not appear in the least a suitable wife for a clever man like Mr. Rose.

"Poor little girl!" Herrick rose from his seat with a sigh at the end of the long, dreary evening. "I'm sorry for her—like the little mermaiden of Hans Andersen, she is ready—now—to dance upon knives for the possession of a soul! Well, she'll win her soul all right, but God grant the winning of it doesn't end in tragedy!"

He stood for a moment gazing into vacancy with a half-tender, half-cynical smile on his lips. Then he extinguished the lamp, called Olga from her resting-place on the old divan, and went slowly to bed.



CHAPTER XV

Herrick duly sent Toni a list of such books as he thought suitable for her purpose; and then began for Toni a succession of long and, if the truth be told, tedious days spent, in Owen's absence, in the quiet, stately library, while the August sunshine streamed in through the big mullioned windows, and turned the books, in their many-hued bindings, into pools of rich, dim colour, lighted here and there with the flash of gold, the gleam of purple and scarlet.

Toni used to wish, half-rebelliously, that the sun would not shine in so gloriously, turning the polished floor into a golden sea, and bathing her, as she sat at the table, in a flood of dancing sunbeams.

It was so hard to sit there reading, trying in vain to dig out the heart of some book of old stories, sagas and the like, or struggling helplessly to understand a poem written in lovely but surely incomprehensible metaphors, and full of words which, though she realized their beauty, still conveyed little to her intelligence.

Herrick had perhaps slightly over-estimated her powers. He had never before come in contact with quite such an undeveloped mind. His own married life had been too short for him to grasp fully the characteristics of his wife, and although in some respects she had not been unlike Toni, she had been differently educated. Her mind had perhaps little depth, but she was quick and versatile; and owing to her surroundings she had been able, always, to adopt the shibboleth of the social set to which she belonged by right of birth.

So it was that Herrick, with all his sympathy, all his intuition, failed to plumb the shallows of Toni's mind. He gave her Rossetti when he should have given her Ella Wheeler Wilcox; and George Eliot when he should have introduced her to Jane Austen and her gentle sister, Miss Burney. The "Idylls of the King," clothed in Tennyson's poetic garments, would have won her interest—instead he advised her to read Malory, and read him she obediently did, until her brain ached with the clash of swords, and her eyes were wearied with the glitter of the dragons' scales or the silver mail of the knights who fought to the death for the damsels they served.

Knowing her love of outdoor life, he sent her to Borrow, but even "Lavengro" failed to charm the lonely student, to whom the sun, the moon, the stars were all "sweet things" indeed, when no printed page intervened between her and their sweetness.

It was weary work, toiling there day after day, while the river flashed and gleamed in the sunlight, and Jock ran barking hither and thither under the windows, as though imploring her to leave those musty haunts and come to chase the elusive yellow sunbeams on the lawn.

At first she had been used to take the big, high-backed chair at the head of the table, and spreading out her books, refuse to cast so much as a look at the sunny world without; but after four or five mornings so spent she gave in suddenly and betook herself to the little table in the window, where from her seat she could watch the tall white lilies swaying in the breeze, or catch the fragrance of the mauve and scarlet sweet-peas which climbed their hedge just out of sight.

It was weary work, and Toni's eyes and head ached when the luncheon-bell rang to set her free from her self-imposed task; but she did not give in, and after her hasty meal she would return to the library and struggle till tea-time with half a dozen French exercises, which by the aid of a key she sternly corrected when finished.

When Owen arrived home, shortly before dinner, Toni was worn out with the combined effects of her mental exertions and her lack of fresh air; but Owen, who was turning over in his mind the material for a novel, was not in a mood to notice her unwonted silence, and was relieved when, after dinner, she went early to bed and set him free to spend the evening in his sanctum, making notes and generally planning out the book he felt he could write.

To the novelist there comes, at the inception of a book, a period in which the things and people around him recede into the background before the people and things he seeks to create; and it is scarcely to be wondered at if at these times the writer's vision, which is turned, so to speak, inward, fails to realize the significance of the scenes being enacted beneath his mortal eyes.

And it was so with Owen. During that strenuous fortnight of Toni's laborious study, Owen was so fully occupied with the visions of his brain that he had little time to spare for the flesh and blood inmate of his home; and though he was always kind to Toni, he did not notice that the laughter was absent from her lips, the joyful light of happiness quenched in her eyes.

The idea of his book was beginning to absorb him very thoroughly. Hitherto he had never had the time to devote to purely imaginative work; but now that the Bridge was going ahead and his series of articles for outside papers was finished, he felt the call of fiction very strongly.

His story was concerned with the conflict between East and West, with the life of an Indian prince who, after his English education, was called upon to rule his dead father's kingdom; and Owen's impressions of India, gathered during a stay of some months in that magic land, formed a brilliant setting for the half-political, half-romantic story he had to tell.

Barry, who was, of course, in the secret, was intensely interested in this new departure; and had no doubt whatever as to the certainty of Owen's success. Indeed Owen himself was surprised at the ease with which he did work he felt to be good. By nature a critic, he would have been the first to detect signs of carelessness, of over-fluency even in his own writing; but the narrative, with its felicitous turns of expression, its lucid, clear-cut phrases, slipped naturally from his pen; and he felt to the full the truth of Stevenson's couplet:

"Bright is the ring of words When the right man rings them."

One afternoon Owen invited Barry to motor down and dine with them at Greenriver; and Barry accepted the invitation with alacrity, for he had not seen Toni for some weeks and was anxious to know how life was treating her.

He hurried over his work for the afternoon, and Miss Loder, the secretary whose services he and Owen shared in common, was secretly surprised, not to say shocked, by his flippant behaviour over a monograph supplied by a valued contributor.

"It's a bit stodgy, eh, Miss Loder? You can feel the ecclesiastical hand upon the pen-holder, can't you?"

Miss Loder was the daughter of a clergyman, whose large family had all been educated with a view to doing some sort of work in the world, and as was only natural she resented the implied censure on the Church.

"If purity of English and clarity of thought are stodgy, Mr. Raymond, I suppose you are right. But what a treat this is after the article of young Bright's! That was hardly in keeping with the tone of the Bridge, if you like!"

"Young Bright's article—why, Miss Loder, it was a gem! It was whimsical in tone, I grant you, perhaps here and there a trifle frivolous, but it was splendid in its way. It simply sparkled with wit and a kind of delicate satire."

"You thought so? I'm afraid I didn't." Miss Loder, who at Cambridge had been known as an excellent debater, closed the subject by her tone; and Barry smiled quietly at her self-sufficiency.

Truth to tell, he had never much liked Miss Loder. While admitting her absolute competency for the post—for she was in her way a brilliant young woman—he found her unsympathetic, narrow-minded, wedded to her own standards of thought and behaviour; and he was wont to assert that her clear grey eye struck terror to his soul.

Miss Loder had been intended for a scholastic career: but although she had passed through her College life with distinction, she found that after all teaching was not her vocation.

She was absolutely devoid of patience, and wanting in the tact, the kindly firmness, the warm sympathy, which go to equip the perfect teacher; and although she might have a subject at her very finger-tips, so to speak, she found it almost impossible to hand on her knowledge so that her class might share it with her.

Once she realized the fact, Miss Loder very wisely withdrew from the field in which she was unable to shine; and since the death of her father had rendered it imperative that she find some remunerative work without delay, she was glad to accept the post which Owen offered her through a mutual friend.

Having once intended to take up journalism, she was conversant with the mysteries of typewriting and shorthand, and her excellent classical education rendered her particularly fitted for the post of secretary to the editor of the Bridge and his coadjutor, Barry Raymond. Her own literary taste was admirable, if a trifle academic; and Owen found her a really useful person with whom to discuss the various departments of his beloved review.

In appearance, Miss Loder was of middle height, with good features, grey eyes of an almost disconcerting frankness, and fair hair which she parted on her forehead and coiled neatly round her head. She was twenty-nine years of age, but looked younger; and she generally wore a well-cut grey skirt and severely plain white shirt, which somehow suited her rather boyish appearance.

At five o'clock on this particular afternoon Barry bade her good-day, and joined Owen in the street outside the office, where the big motor stood throbbing impatiently beneath its owner's hand.

"Jump in, Barry. If we have a good run we might take Toni on the river for an hour. Poor little girl, I'm afraid I've rather neglected her lately."

Barry took his seat, and under Owen's skilful guidance they were soon out of the City tumult, speeding smoothly away in the direction of Richmond.

It was just beyond Staines that the accident happened.

Through no fault of his own Owen collided with a badly-steered motor negotiating a sharp bend; and though no one else was injured it was discovered, after all was over, that Owen had sustained a fracture of the right arm.

The owner of the other car, who was only too palpably a novice in the art of driving, confounded himself in apologies. He was indeed so manifestly upset and distressed to find what his carelessness had done, that in the midst of his own natural annoyance Owen found time to assure him of his complete forgiveness; and the irony of the situation was made evident when it leaked out that the offender was a surgeon, resident in the district, who practised the art of motoring in his spare moments.

He insisted on Owen returning with him to receive all the care and attention his medical skill could supply; and thus it was that when the car, driven by Barry, finally drew up in front of the hall door of Greenriver, Toni, running down the steps to greet her husband and his visitor, was startled to observe Owen, a trifle pale, descend from the car with his right arm supported in a black silk sling.

"Owen!" Every vestige of colour died out of Toni's face. "What has happened? You've had an accident!"

"Nothing much, dear!" He spoke reassuringly. "Collided with another car outside Staines, and I've broken my stupid arm. But that's all."

"Quite enough," struck in Barry, smiling. "No one else was hurt, Mrs. Rose—not even the old idiot who was to blame."

"It's nearly dinner-time, I suppose," said Owen, looking up at the hall clock. "We started early to take you on the river, Toni, but I'm afraid it's too late now."

"And you're disabled," said Barry. "You'll be dependent on our good offices for your dinner; won't he, Mrs. Rose?"

And so it proved, for like a good many people Owen felt utterly at a loss with only one available hand. To Toni fell the task of cutting up his food, and her big eyes grew anxious as she noted his lack of appetite.

As a matter of fact Owen felt disinclined for food, for anything but solitude and rest. His head was aching, and his arm was beginning to pain him so severely that he feared sleep would be out of the question.

After dinner he yielded to the joint entreaties of Toni and Barry and went to bed; leaving his wife to entertain his guest until the car should come round to take him to the station.

The evening had closed in with rain, and the two sat by one of the widely-opened windows in the drawing-room, looking out into the dusky garden, and listening to the soft patter of the rain on the foliage bordering the lawn. There was no wind, and against the cloudy sky the tall trees stood like black giants holding out immovable arms, while from the flowers, refreshed by the shower after their hot, thirsty day, a grateful fragrance rose to sweeten the damp, cool air.

For some time Barry and his hostess sat in silence. Toni had taken her favourite low chair, and her hands lay idly in her lap, the wedding-ring which was their sole ornament gleaming in the lamplight. To Barry's eyes her youthful prettiness had a slightly dimmed effect. Without losing anything of its virginal purity of outline there was a hint of weariness, of almost jaded fatigue, which startled Barry. He thought always of Toni as some joyous woodland nymph, a pagan it might be, a hedonist by nature and training; and while he had regretted, formerly, her lack of worldly and womanly experience, it gave him something of a pang at heart to find that this little pagan creature, this pretty, wild, untutored Undine could apparently lose, for the moment at least, her joy in the "sweet things" of life. That in the process she might be slowly and painfully realizing her soul he did not stop to think. To him the fatigue in her face was pathetic; to Herrick it would have been enlightening.

"Mr. Raymond——" Toni spoke at last, and he threw off his absorption to listen. "If Owen's arm is broken, how will he do his work?"

"That is just what I've been wondering," said Barry. "Of course the ordinary office work, the work of the Bridge, will go on all right without him for a bit. I mean—well, you see I can look after things pretty well, and we have an excellent secretary in Miss Loder."

"But his own work? He is writing a book—a novel, isn't he? He said something about it—though he hasn't read any of it to me," added Toni rather wistfully.

"I don't suppose he's got very far," said Barry, wondering whether she felt slighted by the omission. "Owen is a quick worker, I know, but he has only been at it for a week or two."

"Oh, I know," she replied hastily. "But how will he go on with it? He can't write with his left hand, can he?"

"Not very well." An idea struck Barry, and without stopping to think he gave it utterance. "Look here, Mrs. Rose, you can help Owen no end! You must take it down for him. You could easily scribble it off and then type it out afterwards, couldn't you?"

Into Toni's eyes flashed a light of pure joy.

"Oh, do you think I could! I'd do anything—anything to help Owen," she said eagerly. "It wouldn't be like his articles, full of quotations and things that want verifying, would it? I mean even a stupid girl—like me—could do it, couldn't she?"

"You're not stupid," he rallied her gaily. "Look how quickly you learned to read proof! And even the superior Miss Loder doesn't type as well as you!"

"Doesn't she!" Toni's depression had vanished like magic, and her eyes were sparkling as she looked at him. "Oh, if I could! But I don't believe I dare offer, Mr. Raymond! Do you think if you were to mention it to Owen——"

"Oh, it would come much better from you!" Barry, whose interference on the subject of Owen's marriage had not been too well received, shrank from further officiousness. "If you propose it, I'm sure Owen will jump at it; and he won't mind his enforced helplessness half so much if he can get on with the book."

For a moment Toni said nothing.

The rain had ceased, and in the darkened sky one or two pale-gold stars were gleaming. The air was full of sweet, moist scents; and a big white owl flew by the window, looking weird and ghostly in the dusk. A moment later they heard him hoot from his eyrie in one of the tall tree-tops, and Toni shivered a little.

"I can't get used to their queer cries," she said in a low voice. "Sometimes I hear them in the night, and they make me shudder. Owen laughs at me, and quotes Shakespeare, about the owl and the baker's daughter, but I hate them, all the same."

"I rather like them," said Barry lightly. "Anyway, you mustn't drive them away; it's the very worst of luck to turn them out of their accustomed dwelling-places!"

"Then, they'll have to stop, I suppose," said Toni practically. "But I shall go on hating them all the same!"

Barry laughed and turned the conversation back to her proposed collaboration with Owen; and Toni was only too eager to discuss the subject, which lasted, indeed, until Barry said good-bye.

His last glimpse of her was as she stood on the steps calling out her farewell; and he carried away a clearly-cut impression of the slight, blue-robed figure, her black hair a little loosened round her eager, vivid face, her eyes full of a new and ardent resolution, which had quite banished the look of sadness and fatigue he had noticed earlier in the evening.

It was evident his suggestion had fired her heart and mind, and for a moment, as he was borne swiftly down the black avenue on to the high road, Barry asked himself if he had done well to light that lamp of hope and high desire in her soul.

If Owen should refuse her aid, if he should let her see that he had no desire for help from her, no exportation of any adequate service, the flame which Barry's words had lit would be cruelly extinguished, leaving in its place only the blank and utter darkness of disillusionment.

And once removed from her beseeching presence, Barry wondered, rather hopelessly, if indeed Toni's help would be of any value. She was ready, eager indeed, to be of use; but was she capable of work such as Owen would require?

Against his will Barry had a vision of Miss Loder in Toni's place—not as wife, but as assistant—and he confessed to himself with a groan that the highly-finished product of school and college would probably prove herself of far more practical use than the impulsive, emotional, and alas! unliterary Toni.

But the harm was done now. He had lighted the torch in Toni's soul, and he could only hope that no adverse breath would blow to extinguish its flame.



CHAPTER XVI

"Toni, I have a proposal to make. Suppose you stop typing for a little while and listen to me. Will you, dear?"

Toni, all the colour slipping out of her face, put down the sheet she had just taken up and waited obediently to hear Owen's proposal.

This was the ninth day of their mutual labour; and even Toni's optimism could not assert that the experience had been successful.

She had tried so hard, poor Toni. With every nerve strained to the utmost, with her mind emptied of anything which did not bear upon the subject in hand, she had striven to help Owen, to take down from dictation the words, the sentences, in which his thoughts were clothed.

She had learned not to look up expectantly at every pause, since she had realized that to the harassed author, struggling for the one right phrase, that bright expectancy exercised a deadening effect; and she never even raised her head when silence fell—the silence in which Owen weighed and sifted his material, selecting this, rejecting that, and embodying the result in just the one glowing, clean-cut sentence which would effectually tell.

But Toni found herself, all unwillingly, handicapped, by her non-comprehension both of the matter and method of Owen's creative work.

A plain, straightforward story Toni could assimilate easily enough. Something primitive in her responded, also, to the call of the world-wide emotions of love, hatred, revenge; but Owen's book dealt with none of these; and the subtle philosophy, the carefully interwoven motives of political expediency and half-reluctant patriotism were alike uninteresting and unintelligible.

Where she did not understand, it was natural she should transcribe incorrectly; and although it was easy for Owen to revise the typewritten script after each day's labours, he was perpetually checked in his stride, as it were, by the necessity of repeating or explaining some incident or allusion by which Toni was frankly puzzled.

Naturally, too, the girl was nervous; and Owen's habit of striding to and fro as he dictated made things, as she said desperately to herself, far worse. In vain she quickened her pace in a wild attempt to keep up with him. Faster and faster went her pen, more and more indistinct grew the scribbled words; and in the hour of stress all ideas of spelling and punctuation took to themselves wings and fled.

But worse even than her comparative failure with the merely mechanical portion of the work was her mental inability to follow the working of Owen's mind. Handicapped by the necessity of dictating his book, the author often found himself at a standstill for some word which eluded him; and although he encouraged Toni to make suggestions, it was very seldom that she ventured to do so. The work went badly in consequence. Owen used to think sometimes that if Toni's mind had been more attuned to his, if they had shared ideas, had held the same standard in fiction, he might have gained something from this enforced collaboration; but as things were it became an irritation, effectually stopping the flow of his ideas; and although he did his best to keep Toni in ignorance of his feelings, she was bound to realize that the work was progressing in a lame and halting fashion.

Therefore she was not surprised when Owen broke it to her, gently, that he was thinking of a change of secretary.

"You see, dear,"—he spoke very kindly, feeling indeed very pitiful towards the girl, whose fluctuating colour showed her mental disturbance—"this sort of work demands a special training. You are doing your best, I know, and I am very grateful to you, but you can see, can't you, that I am getting on badly?"

"Yes, Owen." She spoke very slowly, and for a moment Owen wondered whether it would be possible to continue the present arrangement. Then common sense and creative ardour combined to utter a decided negative, and feeling himself to be brutal he hurried on.

"Unfortunately I shan't be able to use my arm for some weeks. That stupid old doctor ought to pay my secretary's fees, oughtn't he, since he's responsible for my helplessness!"

He laughed; but Toni said nothing, and after waiting a second he continued:

"You've been most awfully good and patient, dear, and I'm afraid I've been horribly irritable over the job. But I don't think it's any good our going on. I'm wearing you out, and losing a lot of time into the bargain."

"You are going on with the book?"

"Of course, yes." His matter-of-fact assent caused poor Toni a pang. "But I think I shall have to borrow Miss Loder from the office for a few weeks. She is used to the job, you know. She told me she had once taken down an eighty-thousand-word book, typed it, and seen it through the press, because the author was nearly blind. So she would really know all about the work."

"Yes." Toni wondered, dully, why the sunshine which poured over her held no warmth to-day.

"Well, I'll drop a line to Barry and ask him if he can spare her for a bit. There's a rather smart typist in one of the other rooms could take her place, and I might not want her for very long. As far as the book itself is concerned, I can't work fast enough to get it all done."

"Yes." Sitting there, repeating the word, parrot-wise, Toni looked very forlorn; and something in her attitude struck Owen with a perhaps exaggerated feeling of remorse.

"Well, that's settled," he said cheerfully, "and after this you needn't lose your roses sitting indoors so much. I'll tell you what—let's have a day off, shall we?"

She nodded, hoping he would not see the tears in her eyes.

"Right. We'll have the car—Fletcher will have to drive—and go for a good long run into the country. We'll have lunch out and get back for dinner. You'll like that?"

"Very much." She rose. "I'll go and get ready, shall I?"

"Yes. We'll start at once. By Jove, I shall enjoy a holiday myself!"

Throughout the day Owen surrounded Toni with an atmosphere of kindness which he trusted might dispel the soreness he guessed she was experiencing; but somehow he failed in his object.

Although the day was superb, a still, golden August day, when the summer seemed to pause, arrested in its flight by the fulness of perfection to which it had brought the land, neither Owen nor Toni was sorry to return to Greenriver. As the car stopped in front of the door Toni cast a rather wistful look at the jasmine-covered old house she had learned to love; and for a moment she felt as though she saw herself as those other women had seen her—the ignorant, frivolous, common little person whom Owen had married out of pique.

Never in all her life had Toni felt so humble as on this evening, when she entered the house which was her home. What had she in common with the beautiful old hall, with the broad staircase leading to the spacious gallery, lighted now by the Ten Little Ladies, whose light pierced the gloom like so many kindly little stars?

The pictures, the bowls of roses, all the inanimate things she had grown to look upon as friends—it seemed to her to-night that they looked coldly to her, resenting her presence as an interloper; and in one queer, horrible flash of insight Toni seemed to visualize the woman who should have been the chatelaine of Greenriver—a tall, dignified, beautiful woman, with the bearing of a princess....

"What's the matter, dear?" Owen had seen her shiver. "Are you cold? Yet it's a warm night."

"No, thank you, I'm not cold." She spoke gently. "I—I think I'm a little tired."

She picked up a brown envelope from the table.

"Look, Owen, here's a telegram for you."

"So there is. Open it for me, will you, dear?"

She did so and handed him the flimsy paper. His eyes brightened as he read.

"Good old Barry! He's wasted no time—Miss Loder will come down to-morrow by the ten o'clock train. I must send the car."

He went out and spoke to the chauffeur, returning to say: "Will you arrange for some lunch to be sent up every day, Toni? She can get off by the four train, I daresay, and that will give us a good long time for work."

"I will see to it," Toni said quietly.

"Thanks, dear. Let me see, there's half an hour before dinner. I might go and put everything in order as far as we've gone, so that we can start fair. I mustn't waste her time when she gets here."

"No. Of course not."

Although she tried to speak casually, a note in her voice struck Owen rather unpleasantly. He looked at her sharply in the lamplight; and something in her child-like attitude, as she stood motionless, her hands hanging by her sides, gave him a sudden twinge of something like reproach.

He looked round quickly. They were alone, and acting on impulse Owen stooped, and putting his left hand under her chin, tilted her face upwards until their eyes met.

"Come, Toni." He had seen the tears in those wistful eyes of hers. "What's the matter? You are not hurt about the work, are you? If you would rather not have the woman, say so, and we will go on as we have been doing. It will get easier in time."

"Oh no!" Toni spoke quickly, though her lips quivered. "Indeed I'm not hurt. I—I'm sorry I'm such a fool. I'm only a hindrance to you instead of a help."

Although he had no conception of the wound dealt to her by two thoughtless women, Owen realized that she was in earnest; that she understood, and regretted, her failure to give him the help he needed; and for perhaps the first time since his marriage Owen pitied his wife sincerely. After all, it was he, not she, who was to blame; and being still in the dark, Owen thanked God that at least she had no idea he had married her without giving her the love she had had a right to expect.

"Hush, Toni dear." He held her to him with his sound arm. "After all, I want you for my wife, not my typist. Miss Loder may be able to do the work I want done better than you, because she's used to it; but you're my wife, Toni, and what does anything else matter?"

He did not know whether his words brought her any comfort. She smiled, faintly, and returned the kiss he gave her before he let her go; but when she was alone in her quiet room Toni wept till she could weep no more.

She hated Miss Loder from the first.

Her self-possessed manner, her cool, grey eyes, above all the suggestion of competency which lurked in every line of her trim, well-tailored figure, all alike filled Toni with a sharp sense of resentment which she felt to be both childish and stupid.

Without perhaps intending it, Miss Loder conveyed a sense of superiority. Toni was made to feel that this newcomer knew just why she had been sent for—understood that it was in reality to Toni's incapacity that she owed her present position; and Toni felt, with a miserable intensity, that Miss Loder looked upon her as some brilliant sixth-form girl would survey a kindergarten child, with a kindly, half-amused, half-contemptuous tolerance.

Never had Toni so desperately longed to be clever as during that first week of Miss Loder's secretaryship; and never had she felt herself to be so ignorant, so childish, so futile a companion for a man like Owen.

At first Miss Loder had eaten her lunch in solitude. It was Toni's suggestion that she should join them in the dining-room, and Owen, supposing that Toni felt it a little discourteous to condemn the other woman to a lonely meal, agreed cordially to the plan.

Over her luncheon Miss Loder laid aside her rather scholastic, manner, and talked pleasantly in a quite refreshingly frivolous way; but try as she might Toni never felt at ease in her presence; and gradually she dropped out of the conversation until she sat for the greater part of the meal in silence.

Owen, absorbed in his book, did not notice her taciturnity, and though he responded politely to Miss Loder's chatter, it was evident he was not captivated by her undoubted social gifts to the extent of forgetting the purpose of her presence.

As for Miss Loder, Toni had guessed her attitude towards Mr. Rose's wife correctly enough. To the clever, highly-trained mind of the Girton girl Toni's whole personality was so appallingly feeble.

"The brains of a hen, and the soul, probably, of a chorus-girl." So Miss Loder, quite unjustly, summed up Toni. "Married the man to get out of a life of drudgery, I expect, and is as much of a companion to her husband as a pretty little Persian cat would be. Why will these nice men marry such nonentities, I wonder? She is bound to be a drag on him all her days."

For all her shrewdness Miss Loder never dreamed that her estimation of Toni was clearly evident to the person concerned. In her fatally orderly mind Toni was classified as a "type"—the type of the pretty, useless, childish wife; and Miss Loder never looked for any variation of the type when once she had labelled the specimen.

That his now secretary did her work admirably Owen realized with intense gratitude. For all her modern self-assertiveness Miss Loder was clever enough to realize that in Owen she had met her intellectual master; and being at heart a veritable woman she never attempted to challenge the supremacy of the masculine mind.

The work progressed quickly; and gradually, as the fascination of his work grew upon him, Owen became more and more absorbed in his book. He was always planning some incident, rehearsing, mentally, some situation or some telling dialogue; and the outer life around him receded into a dim and misty distance, in which Toni's pathetic little figure was almost lost.

Toni did not give in easily. She made feeble tentative attempts to share his author's rapture. She asked him timid little questions, to which he gave smilingly vague answers; and once she even suggested that he should read to her the chapters he had already finished.

Owen refused, quite gently, but inexorably; and Toni felt a miserable certainty that he did not think her capable of understanding or appreciating his work.

The day this happened she ordered the car and went for a long and solitary excursion into the country. Of late she had not used the car, preferring to hang wretchedly about the house and garden, half-resenting the absorption of the two workers shut up in the library, not daring to interrupt their toil, yet longing, vaguely, for the courage to enter boldly and claim her share of the mutual labour.

But to-day she felt that she could stand the house no longer. A great desire was upon her for the sunny places of the earth, and in her present mood the slow, gliding traffic of the river held for her no attraction. She longed for the swift, exhilarating rush through the air which, the car would give her; and Fletcher took her orders with alacrity.

"A long round—yes, ma'am." He deliberated. "It's not three yet, and I suppose you don't care to be 'ome much before dinner-time?"

"No, I want to be out for hours," she said feverishly, and Fletcher was only too pleased to oblige her.

Even Toni's depression could not hold beneath the tonic of that glorious ride. It was a splendid September day, when the country lay bathed in floods of rolling sunshine, and there was just enough bite in the air to set the blood racing through one's veins, and bring the sparkle to one's eyes.

Toni sat upright in the car, gazing out over the golden fields to the misty hills beyond, and everything she saw filled her with the true and vivid happiness which the lover of the "sweet things" of the earth knows so well.

A field of yellow corn ablaze with scarlet poppies, a group of trees among which the copper beech blazed with a glory as of the sunset, a glimpse of a wide common all aflame with sweet-scented gorse ... now and again a hint of the river flashing and sparkling beneath the shining sky—Toni, the ignorant, despised Toni, knew how to appreciate the glories of the earth as the brilliant Millicent Loder could never do.

On and on they rushed. Fletcher, who in common with the other servants respected Owen and adored Toni, was only too glad to please his young mistress by taking her far afield; and he utilized his wide knowledge of the countryside in her service, treating Toni indeed to such a panorama of the fertile country as she had never yet been privileged to behold.

They were running through a little village on their homeward way when a tyre burst with a loud report; and Fletcher pulled up with an expression of dismay.

"I'm sorry, ma'am—I shall have to delay you a bit while I put on a new tyre." He looked round him rather doubtfully. "I suppose you wouldn't care to take a cup of tea while I put it right?"

"Mrs. Rose!" A cyclist had halted by the car, and looking up Toni saw Herrick standing beside her. "Had an accident? Nothing serious, I hope."

"Tyre burst, sir," announced the chauffeur, who with the rest of the village looked upon the shabby inhabitant of the Hope House as a harmless eccentric. "I was just asking my mistress if she would care to have some tea while I repair it."

"A capital idea," said Herrick, whose amused eyes saw quite well the chauffeur's estimate of him. "Mrs. Rose, may I take you to get some tea? One of these cottages will supply it, I daresay—or there is quite a decent little inn over yonder."

"Thanks very much." Toni was thirsty, and she liked Herrick. "I'd love some tea—if you'll have some too."

"To be sure I will." He propped his bicycle carelessly against a fence and opened the door of the car. "Which shall we try? A cottage or the inn?"

In the end they decided for the inn; and leaving Fletcher to set to work, Herrick escorted Toni down the village street to the door of the old-fashioned inn which called itself, rather ambiguously, the "Cock and Bottle."

The landlady, who spoke with a Northern burr which made, Herrick glance curiously at her, came bustling into the flagged passage to greet them, and when she had taken their order for tea she ushered them into the parlour with a hospitable smile.

"I'll fetch tea in a minute," said she, "t' kettle's boilin' an' I've a cake on the griddle just about fit."

When she had gone Toni turned two perplexed eyes on Herrick.

"Mr. Herrick, what does she mean? Does the cake fit the griddle, or what?"

Herrick laughed lustily.

"Oh, you Londoner—you poor little Southern kid! Haven't you ever been in Yorkshire—good old Yarkshire, as they call it—the country of tykes and gees and men that can't be beat?"

"Oh, is that Yorkshire!" Toni coloured with excitement. "Mr. Herrick, my father came from there! All his people did—but they're dead now, and I've never been North!"

"Really?" He was to the full as much interested in the coincidence as she. "Well, our good landlady is certainly a Yorkshire woman—and I hope she'll give us a real Yorkshire tea!"

His hope was fulfilled when the buxom Mrs. Spencer returned, which she speedily did. She carried a tray laden not only with cups and saucers, but with an assortment of cakes which would have rejoiced the heart of a Yorkshire child.

"Them's crud cheesecakes," said she, beaming on the pair, "an' these fat rascals is to-day's bake—and the griddle cakes an' all." She laid the table deftly. "I'll fetch the tea-pot and t' cream, and then ye can help yersens."

When she put down the tea-pot, however, Herrick detained her with a question.

"You don't belong to these parts, Mrs. Spencer?"

"No, sir." She shook her head blithely. "I'm a Yorkshire woman, praise the pigs! Married a South-country man, I did—and often wished as I 'adn't—when 'e wur alive, that's to say."

"Since his demise you've altered your mind?"

"Well, he left me pretty well provided for," returned the late Spencer's widow comfortably, "an' I won't say as 'e wur an out-an-out bad 'usband. But somehow I can't abide South-country folk."

"They say we Yorkshire tykes are a rough lot," said Herrick, smiling, and she took up the challenge at once.

"Oh, that's all my eye and Betty Martin," she returned in the vernacular of her youth, "I grant you there's a lot of soft-sawder about the fellers down here, but they ain't in it wi' us up in Yorkshire."

"Where do you come from, Mrs. Spencer? I'm a dalesman myself; Wensleydale's my native land."

"I'm from Thirsk, sir. My mother was washerwoman to lots of the gentry round, and my people still lives there, in a cottage on the Green."

"Ah, I know Thirsk—fine old church there, one of the finest in the North Riding. You've never been there, Mrs. Rose?" He turned to include Toni in the conversation, and found her wide-eyed and flushed with excitement.

"Mr. Herrick, my people lived near Thirsk—in a farm at Feliskirk in the hills. Oh, do you think she knew them?"

Mrs. Spencer, who had hitherto overlooked Toni, turned to her in surprise.

"If you'll tell me the name, miss—ma'am. We knew most of t' people in t' neighbourhood."

"Gibbs—their name was Gibbs." She spoke breathlessly. "The house was called the Green Farm. Oh, do you know anything about them?"

"Gibbs? The Green Farm?" Mrs. Spencer stared incredulously. "Why, I knew old Gregory Gibbs well—and a fine old fellow he was too. And Fred and Roger—why, I knew 'em both. They used to come down into t' town on market days with their dad, and a pair of jolly little lads they were an' all—especially Roger."

"Roger was my father," said Toni quietly, and Mrs. Spencer uttered an exclamation.

"You don't say! But Roger, he ran away—leastways e went off to furrin parts and we 'eard as 'ow 'e'd married an Heyetalian young lady out there. And you are really Roger Gibbs' bairn?"

"Yes; he married my mother—an Italian girl—in Naples. I was born there. But they're both dead now," said Toni sadly.

"Oh, I'm sorry to 'ear that!" Mrs. Spencer spoke sincerely. "To think as I should live to see young Roger's lass 'ere in my 'ouse! You don't favour the Gibbs, miss, if I may say so."

"No, Mrs. Rose is more like her mother's people, I expect," said Herrick, noticing as he spoke how pale Toni looked now that the flush of excitement had died away. "But if she has never been to Yorkshire, at least she can taste her native cakes, eh, Mrs. Spencer?"

Thus reminded of her duties Mrs. Spencer bustled away to find some "preserve," which was only brought out for specially honoured guests; and Toni took the seat Herrick placed for her at the table.

"You'll pour out for us? That's right. I'm afraid our good landlady will want to stay and chatter! Do you mind?"

"Oh, no—do let her stay and talk about my people!" pleaded Toni, and this Mrs. Spencer was very ready to do.

Standing by the table, resting her empty tray on her ample hip, she poured forth a stream of disjointed memories to which Toni listened eagerly. Mrs. Spencer, it seemed, had had an aunt living in the village with the Gibbs; and as a child she had often stayed there; so that she had known Toni's father well.

"Of course, t' Gibbs were always a cut above us," she owned frankly. "My feyther was a foundry hand till he died, and wasn't too steady neither; and when 'e died my mother took in washing. There was a trick young Roger once played 'er about a washing-basket ... what was it now?" She paused to meditate. "Nay, I can't think on this minute ... but she allus said as 'e wur nowt but a bowdekite!" She laughed, jollily, at the recollection, and pressed a cheesecake on Toni with a heartiness there was no resisting.

Thanks to her chatter time flew; and Herrick was just beginning to think of the waiting chauffeur, when there was a sudden spatter of rain against the window panes; and looking out he saw that while they had been talking a storm had been brewing.

"I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little, Mrs. Rose!" He pointed to the rain, now streaming down in a steady torrent. "It won't be more than a shower, I daresay."

"Oh, and Fletcher's outside in it." Toni put down her cup. "Mr. Herrick, could I tell him to come inside and have some tea, do you think? We've been out for hours, you know."

"Certainly. I'll see about it."

He went out and brought in the chauffeur, delivering him over to Mrs. Spencer's good offices; and then returned to find Toni sitting rather disconsolately by the window, looking out at the rain as it splashed into the quickly-forming puddles in the village street.

The sudden storm, the silence which fell after Mrs. Spencer's departure, or the early-falling dusk, had brought back all her misery to Toni's mind, banishing in a flash all her recent joyful animation; and when, after observing her for a moment, Herrick came forward, he saw that a blight had fallen over her late gaiety.

She did not hear his step—thought, perhaps, that he had stayed to speak to the chauffeur or chat with the landlady; and all at once such a sense of bitter desolation swept over Toni that she began to cry softly to herself in the dusk.

Instantly Herrick began to back noiselessly towards the door; but Fate, or perhaps a malignant Boo-Boo, pushed a footstool in his path, over which he stumbled with an involuntary ejaculation.

Startled, Toni turned round and saw him; and cursing his own clumsiness, Herrick judged it best to come forward openly.

"Your man is having some tea, under Mrs. Spencer's kindly auspices." He smiled. "It seems she 'don't reckon nowt' to our combined appetites, so I hope Fletcher will make up for our shortcomings."

He sat down in the low window seat, not far from Toni, and with a smile asked permission to smoke.

"Of course—please do." She spoke indifferently.

"Your husband isn't an inveterate smoker—like me?" He lighted a cigarette gratefully. "I thought most literary men were slaves to tobacco."

"I think Owen smokes a good deal," she said. "And especially now that he is working so hard. Miss Loder is quite shocked at his cigarettes."

"Miss Loder?" The question slipped out before he had time to reflect.

"My husband's secretary." She broke off abruptly, as though unwilling to say more. Then a great flood of bitterness rolled over her spirit, at the memory of her own failure; and mingled with it came a sore envy and distrust of the clear-eyed, capable woman who had supplanted her. Together, the two proved irresistible; and with an almost child-like instinct to confide in the man whom she felt to be trustworthy, Toni turned to Herrick and poured forth her sad little story of disappointment and bitter disillusionment.

Out it all came, her desire to help her husband, and the dread awakening to the fact of her own incompetency. Herrick, listening, realized, as perhaps Owen could not have done, what a blow to Toni's hopes the failure of the experiment had been; and remembering her earlier confidences, when she had appealed to him to reverse the judgment passed upon her by two cruel women, he began to wonder whether Toni would ever find any happiness in the life which had once looked so glorious to her youthful eyes.

He said very little till she had finished, though now and again, a quiet question made clear some point involved by her own incoherency; and from the bottom of his heart he pitied the girl who was beginning to realize that though she might be the wife of the man she loved, she would never be his real companion and helpmate until she could attain something nearer to the high standard of perfection for which he looked.

"This Miss Loder—you like her?"

"I believe—sometimes—I almost hate her," said Toni drearily. "She is everything I am not, you see. She is clever, well-educated, amusing. I think I hate women who tell amusing stories," she added vindictively, biting her lip with her strong little teeth.

"But she is not personally objectionable to you?" Herrick wished to hear, if possible, how she treated her employer's wife.

"No—at least she doesn't mean to be," said Toni, striving to speak fairly. "But I know she thinks I am a fool, and pities Owen for having married me. I believe she thinks I ought never to speak to Owen, never ask him any questions about the book. She was quite—short—with me yesterday because I went in to speak to Owen during the afternoon!"

"Oh, but that's absurd!" Herrick felt a quite unreasonable dislike for the superior Miss Loder. "After all you are his wife—she is only his secretary—and husbands and wives have a claim on each other which no sane person would deny."

"Yes." She did not look convinced, and he tried again.

"Don't forget, will you, that a wife holds an absolutely unique position. She is the one person in the world to whom the man is answerable for his actions, just as she is answerable to him for her own; and if she is—hurt—or annoyed by any proceeding on the part of her husband, she has a perfect right to express her wishes on the subject."

"You mean I have a right to ask Owen to send away Miss Loder?" Toni was always direct in her statements. "I suppose I have—if I wanted to—but I don't. It isn't Miss Loder who makes me miserable. It's the whole hopeless situation."

Her words startled him.

"Not hopeless, Mrs. Rose!"

"Why not?" In her eyes he read again that hint of a tortured woman soul which he had glimpsed before. "It isn't very hopeful, is it? My husband wants help and sympathy, which I cannot give him; and yet because he married me he can't ask anyone else for it except in a business way."

"But—you don't mean:——" Herrick paused, aghast at the horrible idea her words had conjured up; and Toni, with the new quickness which suffering was teaching her, hastened to reassure him.

"Oh, I don't mean he wants to marry any other woman," she said proudly. "I am his wife—unfortunately for him, perhaps, but he will always be true to me. Besides, Miss Loder isn't that sort," she added, rather vaguely.

"Then what——"

"Oh, you don't understand!" Her sad voice robbed the words of all petulance. "Though you are most awfully kind—and clever—you see you aren't married, Mr. Herrick, and that makes a difference."

"Who told you I was not married?" His tone was studiously quiet, yet the girl looked at him quickly, wonderingly.

"I don't think anyone told me—but I thought you weren't." She hesitated, then went on hurriedly. "I used to think that was why you were so—so sad. I mean—oh, I know you laugh and talk and are kind, but somehow I felt all the time there was a sadness underneath...."

She broke off, roused from thoughts of her own trouble by the fear that she had given him pain; and for a moment neither spoke.

Then, with a glance at the window, down whose panes the rain was still streaming, Herrick took a sudden resolution.

Perhaps if he told this girl the story of his own marriage, opened before her eyes the book on whose pages was inscribed so tragic a history, she might take courage anew, realizing that her own pitiful little story held no hint, at least, of shame or disgrace, no hint of a mutual disillusionment which only death could adjust.

He rose abruptly.

"I'll just speak to your man," he said. "I don't think it would be wise to start yet, but I'll see what he says, shall I?"

She let him go, wondering whether her last speech had vexed him; and in a moment he returned.

"Fletcher agrees with me that it will be wise to wait a quarter of an hour," he said; "the rain is not nearly so heavy, and the sky is growing lighter."

"Very well." She spoke listlessly, and his resolve was strengthened. Sitting down on the window seat again, he asked her a question.

"You didn't know I was married? Would you care to hear the story of my marriage? It isn't a very happy story, but it might serve to show you what a different thing your marriage will yet turn out to be."

"I should like to hear what you can tell me," Toni said slowly; and after a moment's hesitation Herrick began the story which he had rightly called unhappy.



CHAPTER XVII

"It is just four years since I met the girl who was to be my wife. I was taking a holiday in Ireland at the time; and daring a visit to an old friend in Dublin I was introduced to a certain Mr. Payton, an Irish squire, who had brought his two daughters up from the country for a few weeks' gaiety. Well, we took a fancy to one another. I was always a queer sort of chap, hating convention and all the trammels of society, and I liked the old man at once. He was a big, jolly old boy, a thorough sportsman and Irish to the backbone. Poor as a rat, yet living somehow like a Prince; hospitable to a fault, and looking on debts and duns in the light of a joke."

He paused for a second, then went on quietly:

"I went back with him and his two girls after their Dublin visit was ended. They were all very kind to me, and there was a sort of charm about the old castle where they lived, always in difficulties, yet keeping open house, and managing, in some mysterious way, to have the best of everything. There are people like that, you know—people who, without possessing a penny, manage to acquire pounds' worth of everything. It's an art, and old Squire Payton had it at his finger-tips."

Outside the rain still fell. Inside the room everything was very quiet.

"Well, the end of it was that I fell in love with Eva Payton. She was just eighteen—a bewitching age, I used to think, and as pretty as a picture. Golden curls that were generally tied up with a blue ribbon, big Irish eyes, put in, as they say, with a smutty finger, a little mouth all soft curves, the tiniest, whitest teeth—oh, there's no denying she was a beauty; and she made my heart beat faster every time she looked at me."

He had spoken rather dreamily, and Toni sat still, fascinated by this authentic peep into another's life; but with a sudden rather harsh laugh, Herrick resumed his story in a different tone.

"Well, we were married. In those days I had a little money—not a great deal, but I managed to make a fair income by painting. I never told you I painted, did I? Well, I did—portraits chiefly; and made quite a decent bit of money."

Toni, who knew nothing of art and artists, never suspected that she was in the company of one of the best-known portrait-painters of the day; and Herrick was well content to keep her in ignorance.

"So we were married and came back to London. We had a house in Kensington—quite an unfashionable locality, but one of the big, old-fashioned houses you find there, with a large garden which was worth a fortune, to my way of thinking. But I soon found that my wife wasn't satisfied to live quietly, out of the world, as it were. She hankered after a house in St. John's Wood, among the 'other artists' or in Hampstead among the rich people. She didn't want to be stuck down among frumps and dowds, she said. West Kensington was all very well for women who were churchy, given up to good works, but she wanted to be in a lively, social, bridge-playing set; and she moped and pined so in our quiet life that I gave in and we moved to a much smarter locality."

Toni, her eyes fixed on his face, said nothing when he paused; and after a minute he resumed his narrative.

"Well, from the first it was an unlucky move—for me. The house was too big, and required a lot of extra furnishing. The studio wasn't as good as my other one had been, and there was only an apology for a garden. But Eva had her wish. People called on her, and finding her pretty, vivacious, clever in her quick Irish way, they took her up and made a fuss of her. She was invited here and there, and of course her personal expenditure rose in consequence. Unfortunately my work didn't increase in proportion. I had the bad luck to fall ill—the only time in my life I've ever had an illness—and for several months I was unable to touch a brush. Of course I had a little money put by, and with ordinary prudence we should have pulled through all right. But Eva had never learned prudence. She had lived all her life in an atmosphere of debt and dunning creditors and over in easy-going old Ireland no one cared a straw if one were in debt or no. So to my horror when I was convalescent I found my foolish little wife had been running up enormous bills. Everything was in arrears. The housekeeping money had gone to pay for her daily amusements, the servants were unpaid, the tradespeople clamouring."

He laughed, rather drearily.

"Well, I sold out a little stock I had and set matters right or so I thought. I put the rest of the money in the bank and told Eva she must be rather careful. But imagine my horror when one day she came to me, whimpering with fright, and confessed she had several personal bills unpaid and the creditors were pressing her. At first she did not tell me the whole truth. She prevaricated, showed me one or two bills not made up to date, and was vague about the different amounts. Finally she owned that she was in debt for nearly five hundred pounds."

"Five hundred pounds!" It was Toni's first interruption.

"Yes. Sounds a lot, doesn't it? We'd only been married a year. Still there was nothing for it but to realize some more capital, and I did it, and then asked for the bills. She brought them unwillingly, after a vain attempt to get me to entrust the payment to her; and to my surprise and relief, I found that three hundred would cover the lot."

"But——"

"Oh, it didn't—by a long way. By dint of a good deal of persuasion, I got it out of my wife that the rest was owing to different friends for bridge and racing debts. Of course I had forgotten that my little Irish wife was a born horse-lover, and, I'm sorry to say, gambler; and I ought not to have been surprised. But I was. And I'm afraid I was a bit brutal. You see I couldn't help thinking it was rather hard that the money I'd worked for was to be squandered; and I spoke rather sharply to the poor child."

Toni, listening, thought he was justified in speaking sharply, but she did not venture to say so.

"I scolded her first—she was like a child expecting to be sent to bed—and then I got a statement of her debts and paid them. But I told her, at the same time, that I should never do it again. I promised to help her in little ways if the allowance I made her was insufficient; but I pointed out to her that my income wouldn't stand the drain of huge payments like these; and she cried pitifully and promised, solemnly, that she would never play for money again."

"And she did?" Toni's interest in the story was her excuse.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Of course. It was in her blood. Gambling in one form or another she must have. Someone told me afterwards—after the crash—that it was an almost uncanny sight to see my wife, looking like a child with her curls and her big grey eyes, sitting at the bridge table playing feverishly into the small hours of the morning; or talking to bookmakers' clerks with an evidently inborn knowledge of the ways of horse-racing. I was a fool, of course. Instead of sitting in my studio painting portraits, I ought to have gone about with her—and yet, if I had, there'd have been no money for either of us."

He sighed heavily.

"Well, the crash came eventually. Twice more I paid her debts and twice she swore to give up her folly. Then I was sent for to a big place in Wales, to paint some portraits—those of the three daughters of the house—and of course I had to go. I had been there a month when I got an urgent wire from my solicitors to return at once; and back to town I went, to see what mischief my little wife had been getting into."

"And you found——"

"I found the house in an uproar. Waiting for me was my solicitor, and with him a Jewish-looking man who was the head of a large jeweller's business in the West End. Also—in another room—were a detective and a well-known pawnbroker. Now—can you reconstruct the story they told me—between them?"

She shook her head.

"No, I can't imagine what it was."

"You wouldn't." For a moment a sort of tenderness softened his tone, which hardened again as he went on. "It seems my wife had never, from the beginning, told me the truth, with regard to the extent of her liabilities. Besides those I knew of, she owed two or three hundreds to a money-lender, to whom she had gone in a panic on first discovering she was in debt. He had lent her the money, at an enormous rate of interest, and as she had been unable to pay anything he was now pressing for immediate payment. Distracted by his threats, and by the other bills which her extravagance had run up, too terrified to appeal to me after her solemn promises, Eva conceived a really desperate plan. Taking advantage of my absence she went to Jordan and Green, the jewellers, and asked if she might have a very fine pearl necklace on approval. They demurred a little, politely, at first, and asked her name, whereon she gave it, without hesitation, as Lady Eileen Greenlay, an Irish girl with whom she had been acquainted in Dublin, and to whom she bore a striking resemblance. She gave them Lady Eileen's address in Hamilton Terrace, and one of the clerks, who knew the lady by sight, advised the head of the firm that this was really she. Of course they knew the family were wealthy people, and as Eva was beautifully dressed, with furs—unpaid for—worth two hundred pounds, they let her have the necklace, and off she went with it."

"But how risky!" Toni breathed the word in horror.

"A desperate woman sticks at very little," Herrick reminded her grimly. "Well, the misguided girl took her trophy and went off to Rockborough, the big pawnbroker, where she displayed the necklace and asked for a loan. Seeing no reason to doubt her genuineness, they advanced her a large sum—though not, of course, the full value of the jewels, and she took the money and paid the money-lender and one or two more people who were pressing her. But it happened by a queer coincidence that a day or two later Jordan and Green had a visit from an aunt of the real Lady Eileen's, who wished to send her a little diamond pendant for a birthday present; and when she gave the address to which it was to be sent as one of the best hotels in Mentone, the jewellers became uneasy. They instituted inquiries, found the young lady's family were all out of town, the Hamilton Terrace house closed; and it became pretty evident they had been hoaxed."

He paused; but Toni did not speak.

"The first thing they did was to make inquiries at the big pawnbrokers, and of course they knew in an hour or two that they had been done. With a queer sort of cleverness, Eva had given herself out, to the second lot of people, as an actress to whom the necklace—a present—was worth little compared with the value in cash; and they had believed her story. But naturally it was soon proved to be false; and at first matters were at a deadlock. Well, the police were called in; and by dint of many inquiries among taxi-drivers, the girl was finally traced to the money-lender's office in Holborn. He, of course, was as close as the grave; but one of his clerks was bribed into giving the lady's name; and everything was easy after that."

"Oh, poor girl!" Toni's soft heart felt a great compassion for the frightened wife.

"At first, of course, she denied everything. Unfortunately, Lord Thirsk, the father of the girl she had impersonated, took up a very violent attitude and demanded the utmost restitution; and since so many people were in the secret it was absolutely impossible to hush it up. I did my best; I offered everything I had in the world if they would let the matter drop without a prosecution, but it was useless. The thing had to go to court, and there was a big excitement over the case."

"And——"

"Oh, the result was a foregone conclusion. In spite of everything, in spite of her denials, her terrified lies, her vain attempts to clear herself by"—he hesitated—"by implicating me, the case against her was as clear as the day. I tried my hardest—I perjured myself to try to clear her of the worst guilt—I strove my best to make her out my tool, but it wasn't any good. The Counsel on the other side simply turned me inside out in two minutes. In spite of all my efforts I couldn't convince him I'd had a hand in it—and of course my absence from town showed the truth pretty plainly. Well, Eva spoke out, in the end."

Ho set his lips as he thought of the miserable girl's confession, following on hours of mental torture at the hands of the prosecuting Counsel.

"In the end I think it was a relief to her to speak the truth. After seeing all her lies, all the pitiful, sordid little lies, torn to pieces, after hearing all the weight of evidence against her, seeing the net close in on her—on one helpless, terrified little girl—she gave in and begged desperately for mercy. She seemed to think if she told the truth—at last—they would pardon her, let her off, and she poured out the whole story and cried out for forgiveness. She couldn't believe they would send her to prison...."

His brow was wet with the reminiscent agony of those closing scenes.

"Of course they could do nothing but sentence her. Then, when she understood that she was to be sent to prison after all, she went nearly off her head with fright ... she swore she'd lied, retracted everything she'd said ... oh, there was a terrible scene—she shrieked when they tried to silence her, clung to the dock so that they shouldn't take her away ... my God! It was horrible, horrible to see her, so little and fragile, screaming to me to save her from the men who were all against her...."

Toni, white to the lips, could see it all. She had forgotten her own griefs now in contemplation of this far more terrible sorrow.

"Even the Judge was upset when he had to sentence her. The court was full of women—I told you the case had attracted a lot of attention—but thank God they were rendered miserable by their presence there in the end. When she heard her sentence—eighteen months in the second division—she couldn't grasp it at first—and then just as I was beginning to feel I must do something or I should go mad, she fainted clean away and was carried out insensible."

"Oh, Mr. Herrick,"—Toni, her eyes full of tears, spoke impetuously—"how terrible for you—for you both! Did you go to her and try to comfort her?"

He was silent for a long moment. Then—

"That was the worst of all." His voice was grim. "When once she realised that she was helpless, that she was to be kept in prison, against her will, for eighteen long months, all her love for me turned to hate. By a queer, perverted instinct she blamed me for everything that had happened. She persisted in asserting that I could have saved her if I would. It was quite useless for me to say anything. I was allowed to see her once more—with my solicitor—and she heaped reproaches on my head till my blood ran cold. She called me a scoundrel, a coward, because I hadn't succeeded in shifting the blame to my own shoulders. She raged against her fate, swore she wouldn't obey the rules, would starve herself to death—and taunted me with the fact, that while she was suffering, starving, in a prison cell, I should be warm and well-fed at home. She screamed out that she hated me, wished me dead—and my last glimpse of her was as she disappeared, her face distorted with passion till all the soft childish beauty had vanished."

"And she is there now?"

"In prison? Yes."

"But—is the time nearly over?"

"Yes. Four weeks to-day Eva will be set free." He stared out of the window with unseeing eyes. "And then will come the question—what are we to do?"

"To do?" She did not understand.

"Yes. You know, she will never forgive me. In her childish, unreasonable way, she persists in thinking everything that happened was my fault. If I had given her more money, she would not have got into debt. If I hadn't gone to Wales and left her alone she would never have done the thing; and if I had only lied better, the blame would have been mine—and the punishment."

"But it was she who was guilty——"

"I know—but if I could have gone to prison in her stead, God knows I'd have gone—willingly. Things are so different for men. When I think of her, the little, soft, fragile thing I married, shut up alone in a cell, wearing prison garments, eating rough prison food, being ordered about by harsh, domineering women, why, I almost curse myself that I am free to walk about under God's blue sky!"

"Shall you go back to London—when she is free?"

"I don't know—I don't know," he said rather drearily. "I let the house at once—gave it up at the next quarter, and our things are stored. I wanted to get away from it all, so I came down here and took the bungalow, but of course it won't suit Eva."

"Couldn't you—change your name?"

"That's done already," he said. "Just after the trial an uncle obligingly died and left me nine thousand pounds on the understanding I should take his name; so I did, of course, and turned myself from James Vyse into James Herrick."

"Then no one will know?"

"No. But this life, this vagabond river life that both you and I love, wouldn't suit Eva very long. No, I'm afraid we shall have to seek some 'city of bricks and mortar'—but even my wife won't be keen on London, and it's the only city one can live in properly."

While he talked, the rain had ceased; and he rose as he spoke the last words.

"Well, Mrs. Rose, I've showed you the skeleton in my cupboard—and he's a pretty grisly object, isn't he? But I don't want to depress you with a recital of my woes. After all, life's sweet, sister—and you and I, thanks be to God, have the soul of the gipsy within us, which is made quite happy, poor feckless thing, by the sight of the sun or the music of the breeze!"

Her eyes kindled with sudden comprehension.

"Yes—and you've shown me what a fool I am to think myself unhappy!" She too sprang up, and her body was full of vigour and youth again. "I won't give in, Mr. Herrick! You've not given in, and you've heaps more cause than I have. After all, I'm young and I love nature and—and my husband—and I have a soul—you told me so! And in time Owen will be satisfied with me, won't he?"

"Of course he will!" In his heart Herrick thought the man who was dissatisfied with this eager, enthusiastic, courageous youth must be hard indeed to please.

"I've read nearly all those books," she said proudly, "and I can read French ever so much better now. And I won't care for Miss Loder's cold stares and her amused little laugh when I do something silly. And if I go on trying, I shall soon be a fit companion for Owen, shan't I, Mr. Herrick?"

"Dear little child," he said, laying his hand on her shoulder, "don't try too hard! Read your books, study languages, take an interest in the vital questions of the day—but don't lose your tenderness, your sympathy, your freshness of heart. Grow up if you will, but don't grow too fast! And in cultivating your soul, don't forget that a woman's heart is her sweetest, rarest treasure after all!"

He released her gently.

"There! My sermon's over—and so, apparently, is the rain. And that blithe footstep I hear outside surely heralds the approach of Mrs. Spencer!"

He was right. After a loud knock the door opened briskly to disclose Mrs. Spencer bearing a lighted lamp; and Herrick went forward to relieve her of her burden.

"Enter the Lady with the Lamp!" quoth he, smiling. "Well, Mrs. Spencer, the rain's over and gone, and it's time we went too, eh, Mrs. Rose?"

"I suppose so." She took up the coat she had thrown aside. "Has the chauffeur had some tea, Mrs. Spencer?"

"Lor yes, ma'am, and enjoyed it too," responded the landlady, beaming. "A rare good trencherman he be an' all! I'd sooner meat him for a week nor a fortnight, as they say in our parts."

"Meet him?" Even Herrick did not recognise the idiom.

"Yes, sir—board him, give him his meat," explained Mrs. Spencer volubly. "But I can't say as much for you and the young lady, sir."

She looked regretfully at the still loaded plates.

"We've had a lovely tea, Mrs. Spencer," said Toni, her heart very warm towards this comely woman who had known her father. "I shall come and see you again some day. May I?"

Mrs. Spencer immediately invited her to come as often as she liked; and then covered both Toni and Herrick with confusion by refusing to take a penny for their tea.

"What—me take money from Roger Gibbs' lass?" she said, her manner filled with the mingled independence and respect of the best type of countrywoman. "Not I, sir. We Yorkshire folks don't grudge a cup o' tea and a bit of fatty cake to them as is like ourselves, exiles in a strange land. Besides, it's been a rare treat to see the young lady. To think that Roger Gibbs' lile lass should come drivin' up in one of they great mutter-cars, too!"

"Yes, and it's really time she drove away in it," responded Herrick pleasantly. "I think I hear Fletcher bringing it round."

There was a tentative hoot from Fletcher's horn at that moment; and after a grateful farewell, and a vain attempt to pay, at least, for Fletcher's tea, Herrick took Toni out and installed her in the car.

He refused her invitation to drive home with her, alleging that his health required exercise; and though Toni might have been forgiven for thinking fifteen miles' ride over a wet and muddy road, under a still cloudy sky, rather a strenuous form of exercise, some newly acquired intuition told her he really wished to be alone.

She said good-bye, therefore, without attempting to press the matter; and a moment later the car glided away, its lamps gleaming in the rural blackness of the village street.

As he rode home, his tyres splashing through puddles, and spattering him with mud, Herrick's face was very tired and worn, but in his eyes there lurked a little faint light of happiness that he had helped another weary soul a few steps forward on its pilgrimage over a thorny road.

"Poor little soul!" He smiled as he recognized the form his sympathy took. "After all she's right—she has a soul—and even though it brings her suffering and tears, it's worth the price. And yet—I wonder if it would have been kinder to leave her alone—not to encourage that hope of hers to make herself more intellectually worthy of her husband? I didn't make much success of waking my Undine's soul to life! All I got was her hatred—and from the beginning she lied to me!"

Luckily at that moment his lamp blew out, viciously; and with a muttered execration of the creatures he called Boo-Boos, he dismounted and relighted the flame, whose vagaries throughout the rest of the long ride kept him so fully occupied that he had neither time nor inclination to meditate on such abstractions as souls.



CHAPTER XVIII

By the end of September, Owen's book was finished; and on a beautiful autumn morning he and Toni set off in the car on a journey to town, where a publisher, who was also a personal friend, was waiting to receive the manuscript.

Mr. Anson was a kindly, energetic man of middle age; and he had secretly long expected Owen to turn novelist; so that he accepted the bulky manuscript with a real curiosity as to its value.

He promised to let the author know his decision at an early date; and then invited Owen and his wife to lunch with him at the Carlton, an invitation which Owen accepted at once, rather to Toni's dismay.

They were his sole guests; and beneath his kind and courteous manner, Toni lost her shyness and charmed her host by her girlish simplicity and directness.

It happened that the conversation turned on the bungalows which lined the banks of the river as it flowed through Willowhurst; and presently Mr. Anson asked a question.

"You've got Vyse down there, haven't you? You know the chap I mean—the portrait-painter."

"I don't think so." Owen was puzzled. "At least I have not heard of him being there. Have you, Toni?"

"Yes—Mr. Anson means Mr. Herrick," said Toni quietly. "He told me the other day he had changed his name."

"Ah yes, I remember now—something about some money, I believe. You know him, Mrs. Rose?"

"Yes. He fished me out of the river one day when I had fallen in," said Toni smiling. "And he has been to see us several times—but I didn't know he was famous," she finished naively.

"Didn't you? Why, he is—or was—one of the foremost men in his own line until there was the trouble with his wife."

"Surely you don't mean that jewel affair?" Owen asked meditatively. "Didn't Vyse's wife steal a pearl necklace or something of the sort? I seem to remember something about it—though I did not connect it with this chap."

"His wife—who was one of the prettiest Irish girls I ever saw—got a valuable necklace on approval and pawned it for money to pay her debts, yes. Poor fellow, it broke him up completely."

"Really?" Owen was interested. "Where is she—the wife—now? Did he leave her, or what happened?"

"She is in prison," returned the other man slowly. "I understand her time is nearly up, and I am wondering what they will do when she comes out again."

"In prison—ah yes, I recollect the affair now, though I was away at the time. Got eighteen months, didn't she?"

"Yes. It was the most painful experience I've ever had, to listen to her being sentenced." Mr. Anson's florid face grew grave. "It happened that her Counsel was a nephew of mine, and I promised to hear him handle the case. But, of course, it was hopeless from the start."

"The husband—this chap Herrick—was blameless, I suppose?"

"Quite. He knew nothing about it, though the girl tried her hardest to implicate him. He did his best, too, would have sworn anything to clear her and take the blame, but her lies were all so dreadfully patent it was no use. In the end she told the truth, thinking it would help her; but it was too late then."

"She took it badly?"

"Terribly. She cried and shrieked for mercy, fought like a tiger with the officials who tried to take her away, and screamed reproaches at her husband, till everyone was sick of the scene. Of course, she never dreamed they would send her—a lady, and a delicate bit of a girl, too—to prison like a common thief, and she completely lost her self-control when she realized what was going to happen. It was a relief to everyone when she gave one last cry and fainted right away."

"Hard lines on the husband," said Owen, reflectively.

"Deuced hard lines—and he as decent a fellow as ever stepped. Why he ever married her, God only knows. She didn't care a bit for him—wasted his money and then reviled him because he'd no more. Of course, she came of a rotten stock—wasters and gamblers every one—and this was how the hereditary taint came out in her."

"She must have served most of her sentence by now?"

"Comes out next week. I wonder what he will do with her. She's not the sort of woman to live in a shanty by the riverside, and yet he can't very well bring her back to town."

"I wonder?" Owen glanced at his watch. "I say, Anson, I don't want to be rude—after our excellent lunch!—but I've an appointment at the office at three and it's a quarter to now."

"All right, my boy, I won't detain you." Anson rose at once. "I'm glad you keep an eye on the Bridge—it's a fine little review and going ahead all the time."

Owen's face brightened at this authoritative praise.

"I'm glad you think go. Of course, we are jolly lucky in our staff, and we've got the best sort of contributors, too."

"Yes. By the way, how on earth have you managed to get all this stuff turned out with a disabled arm?" He patted the thick packet of manuscript and glanced at Owen's inconspicuous sling wonderingly. "Perhaps Mrs. Rose helped you?" He looked, with a smile, at Toni.

"No." She coloured hotly. "I did not help at all."

"Miss Loder—my secretary at the office—came down to help me," said Owen easily. "She is used to the work, you see, and does it excellently."

"I see." The kindly eyes had seen Ton's flush. "Well, no doubt Mrs. Rose is satisfied to inspire your work and let others do the manual labour. The power behind the throne, eh, Mrs. Rose? That's what women used to be, bless them, before these dreadful Suffragettes arose to destroy woman's real influence by violence and wrongheadedness."

"I expect my wife is jolly thankful the book's finished," said Owen laughing. "She has had a pretty thin time while I've been writing it. But now I suppose there will be a lull of a few weeks?"

"Oh, I won't keep you long," said Mr. Anson genially. "I'll send the manuscript to the reader to-night, and let you know as soon as possible."

They parted from their host on the pavement out side the Carlson, and Owen turned to Toni.

"Now, dear, what will you do? Will you come with me to the office, or have you any shopping?"

Toni bit her lip nervously. She had a request to make, and did not know how to set about it.

"Well?" Owen watched her, wondering why she looked embarrassed.

"Owen, would you mind if I went to Brixton to see my aunt? I—I'm afraid they think I'm a little unkind, and after all they have always been good to me."

"Why, Toni"—Owen was genuinely surprised—"you don't mean to say you are afraid to ask me that! Of course you can go. I'll come to fetch you when I've finished my work, if you like."

"Will you?" She knew how such a visit would gratify her aunt. "Shall I take a taxi, then, Owen? You'll want the car."

"Yes, I think that would be best, then you can stay as long as possible. What time shall I come, Toni? Half-past five or so?"

"Yes. That will be lovely. Then we'll have a jolly ride home."

He called a taxi accordingly and installed Toni therein; and he stood back to watch her gliding away from him in the mellow September sunshine, before he hurried to the office where Barry was impatiently awaiting his arrival.

Toni found several members of the Gibbs family at home when at length she reached her destination.

Being Thursday, Fanny was enjoying her weekly holiday, and was delighted to see Toni; more especially because she had a piece of news to confide which appealed strongly to Fanny's romantic nature.

When the first greetings were over, and Mrs. Gibbs had retired with the hospitable intention of "putting on the kettle," Fanny beckoned mysteriously to Toni to mount the narrow stairs leading to the room the girls had formerly shared in common.

Toni mounted obediently; and for a second she forgot to wonder what Miss Gibbs' extraordinary signals might imply, for a sudden feeling of gratitude to Owen for having lifted her out of this dingy atmosphere flooded her impressionable nature.

Surely when she too had slept beneath this low ceiling the room had not been quite so small, so stuffy. The wall-paper was the one she and Fanny had themselves chosen years ago, but it was oddly faded and dirty now, and in one corner a great piece had peeled off, hanging in strips and disclosing the plaster behind. The common furniture, too—the rickety deal dressing-table, the broken chair, the unpainted iron bedsteads—thinking of her own airy, spacious, bedroom with its shining toilet-table, its linen bedspread, its big windows opening on to a view of the river and the fields beyond, Toni wondered how she had ever endured life in these sordid, depressing surroundings.

Luckily Fanny was too full of her news to notice Toni's involuntary shudder as she looked round the close little bedroom; and barely waiting to shut the door she blurted out her tidings.

"Toni, you remember Lennie Dowson—the fellow who was sweet on you?"

Toni nodded casually, her eyes still roaming round her, and Fanny felt vaguely disappointed that the subject was so evidently uninteresting.

"Well, he's going to Sutton, three miles from Willowhurst, and I truly believe it's because he wants to be near you!"

She had succeeded in arousing Toni's interest at last.

"Leonard Dowson? Do you mean the dentist? But what on earth will he do in Sutton?"

"Look at people's teeth, I suppose," returned Miss Gibbs practically. "He was in night before last, and he told Ma he was sick of London, and this was a change for the better. It is a town, isn't it. And I s'pose people by the river have toothache same as us, don't they?"

"It is a town—of a sort," said Toni, "but I shouldn't have thought Mr. Dowson would have settled there. He always said London was the one place in the world for him."

"That was when you were there," returned Fanny sagely. "I don't b'lieve he's ever got over you, Toni. Ma says she never saw such a change in anyone, and you know he was always fond of you. That's why he's going to Sutton, you may take my word for it."

To Fanny's surprise Toni spoke coldly.

"I really can't imagine how you can be so silly, Fanny. How can it affect Mr. Dowson where I am? I'm married now, and anyway he was never anything to me."