oung man's eyes accustomed themselves to the dimness, the room did
not seem dark.

He was not left alone for long. In two or three minutes Rosemary
appeared once more, without her hat and coat, to say that "Angel" had
not yet come back. "But she'll soon be here now," went on the child.
"Do you mind waiting in the twilight, fairy father? The electric light
doesn't come on till after five, and I've just heard the clock
downstairs strike five."

"I shall like it," answered Hugh, glad that his face should be hidden by
the dusk, in these moments of waiting.

"Angel tells me stories in the twilight," said Rosemary, as he sat down
on the sofa by the cold fireplace, and she let him lift her light little
body to his knee. "Would you tell me one, about when you were lost?"

"I'll try," Hugh said. "Let me think, what story shall I tell?"

"I won't speak while you're remembering," Rosemary promised, leaning her
head confidingly against his shoulder. "I always keep quiet, while Angel
puts on her thinking cap."

Hugh laughed, and was silent. But his head was too hot to wear a
thinking cap, and no story would come at his half-hearted call.

Rosemary waited in patience for him to begin. "One, two, three," she
counted under her breath; for she had learned to count up to fifty, and
it was good practice when one wished to make the time pass. She had
just come to forty-nine, and was wondering if she might remind the fairy
father of his duty, when the door opened.

It was Angel, of course; but Angel did not come in. She stopped on the
threshold, talking to somebody, or rather somebody was talking to her.
Rosemary could not see the person, but she recognised the voice. It was
that of Mademoiselle de Lavalette.

"You are not to write my mother letters, and trouble us about that
money, madame," said the voice, as shrill now as it could be sweet.
"Once for all, I will not have it. I have followed you to tell you this.
You will be paid soon; that is enough. I am engaged to be married to a
rich man, an American. He will be glad to pay all our debts by and by;
but meantime, madame, you are to let us alone."

"I have done nothing, except to write and say that I needed the
money,--which you promised to return weeks ago, or I couldn't possibly
have spared it," protested a voice which Hugh had heard in dreams three
nights out of every six, in as many years.

"Well, if you write any more letters, we shall burn them unread, so it
is no use