ers that you may learn what
to avoid. I can't give you better advice than this."

"I'll try," Douglas declared, laughing.

The elderly gentleman picked up his hat, declined coffee vigorously, and
liqueurs scornfully.

"Ten pounds a week," he said, "three months notice either side, and no
work of the same sort for any other country paper. I'll be frank with
you. I shall sell the letters out, and make a profit on 'em. A dozen
newspapers'll take them. Good-night. Address here."

He laid down a card and disappeared. Douglas looked at his companion
and laughed. They sat upon a lounge placed back between the fountain
and the palms, and drank their coffee. Douglas lit a cigarette.

"Why, I'm a rich man," he exclaimed. "I suppose it's all right."

"Oh, it's quite genuine," she said, "but you ought to have asked more
money. Mr. Anderson is very odd, but he's honest and liberal, and a
great friend of mine.

"Ten pounds seemed such wealth," he said, with a sudden thought that his
days in a garret were over when he chose.

"It is very little," she repeated. "I could have got you more. Still
there are some other things I have in view for you."

A sudden wave of gratitude made him ashamed that he had ever for a
moment listened to Drexley the lunatic, and Rice, miserable croaker. He
held out his hand to her.

"I owe you so much," he said. "I shall never be half grateful enough."

She held his fingers--surely no woman's hand was ever so delicately
shaped, so soft, so electric. His fingers remained, only now they
enclosed hers.

"I do not want any word of thanks from you," she said. "Only I should
like you to remember that I have tried to do what little I could for
you."

Still their hands lingered together, and Douglas was thrilled through
all his senses by the touch of her fingers, and the soft, dark fire of
her eyes. He held his breath for a moment--the splashing of the
fountain alone broke a silence eloquent enough, so fascinating indeed
that he felt his breath tighten in his throat, and a sudden
overmastering desire to seize the embrace which some unspoken instinct
seemed to denote awaited him. Afterwards he always felt that if no
untoward thing had come then the story of his after life would surely
have been painted in other colours. But there came an interruption
altogether unexpected, marvellous, tragical. Their hands were still
joined, he had turned slightly towards her so that his eyes looked into
hers, they w