ourself. Think while there's time--think of your good
name, your character!"

"I shall do as I please."

"Listen! If I have chosen to be a clergyman, it's not because I've lived
all my life in cotton wool. Let me tell you what the lives of such men
really are--the best of them, the very best. He gets up at noon, walks in
the park, takes tea with some one, grunts and groans that he must go to
somebody's dinner party, escapes to the Gaiety Theatre, sups at a
so-called club----"

"You mean Lord Robert. But what right have you to say----"

"The right of one who knows him to be as bad as this, and worse--ten
times worse! Such a man thinks he has a right to play with a girl if she
is poor. She may stake her soul, her salvation, but he risks nothing.
To-day he trifles with her; to-morrow he marries another, and flings her
to the devil!"

"There's something else in this. What is it?"

But John Storm had swung about and left her.

As soon as she was at liberty she went in search of Polly Love, expecting
to find her in her cubicle, but the cubicle was empty. Coming out of the
little room she saw a piece of paper lying on the floor. It was a letter,
carefully folded. She picked it up, unfolded it, and read it, hardly
knowing what she was doing, for her head was dizzy and her eyes were
swimming in unshed tears. It ran:

"You ask, Do I mean to adopt entirely? Yes; to bring up just the same as
if it were born to me. I hope yours will be a strong and healthy boy; but
if it is a girl----"

Glory could not understand what she was reading. Whose letter could it
be? It was addressed "X. Y. Z., Office of _Morning Post_."

There was a hurried footstep approaching, and Polly came in, with her
eyes on the ground as if looking for something she had dropped. At the
next moment she had snatched the letter out of Glory's hand, and was
saying:

"What are you doing in my room? Has your friend the chaplain told you to
spy upon me?"

The expression on her face was appalling, and Glory, who had flushed up
with shame, turned away without a word.

When John Storm got back to his room he found the following letter from
the canon on his table:

"Since our interview of this morning (so strangely abridged) I have had
the honour to visit your dear uncle, the Prime Minister, and he agrees
with me that the strain of your recent examinations and the anxieties of
a new occupation have probably disturbed your health, and that it will be
prude