excerpts in a pocket-book. But I can more or less correctly surmise
how she would put her case; how she typed it herself in the solitude
of two evenings; how, indeed, her nervous break-down was made the
reason for fending off all clients and denying herself to all
callers.

"I am not David Vavasour Williams. I am Vivien Warren, the daughter
of a woman who runs a series of disreputable Private Hotels on the
Continent. I had no avowed father, nor had my mother, who likewise
was illegitimate. She was probably the daughter of a Lieutenant
Warren who was killed in the Crimea, and _her_ mother's name was
Vavasour. My grandmother was probably--I can only deal with
probabilities and possibilities in this undocumented past--a Welsh
woman of Cardiff, and I should not be surprised if I were a sort of
cousin of the man I am personating.

"He was the ne'er-do-weel, only son of a Welsh vicar, a pupil of
Praed's, who went out to South Africa and died or was killed in the
war.

"You have met my adopted father. He fully believes I am the bad son,
the prodigal son, returned and reformed. He has grown to love me so
much that it really seems to have put new life into him. I have
helped him to get his affairs straight, and I think I may say he has
gained by this substitution of one son for another, even though the
new son is a daughter! I have taken none of his money, other than
small sums he has thrust on me. I have some money of my own, earned
in Honoria's firm, for I was the 'Warren' of her 'Fraser and
Warren.' She has known my secret all along, hasn't quite approved,
but was overborne by me in my resolve to show what a woman--in
disguise, it may be--could do at the Bar.

"Michael! I started out twelve years ago--and the dreadful thing is
I am now _thirty-four_ in true truth! to conquer Man, and a man has
conquered me! I wanted to show that woman could compete with man in
all careers, and especially in the Law. So she can--have I not shown
it by what I have done? But it is a drawn battle. I have realized
that if some men are bad--rotten--others, like you--are supremely
good. I love you as I never thought I could love any one. I cannot
trust myself to write down how much I love you: it would read
shamefully and be too much a surrender of my first principle of
self-respect.

"I am going to throw up the whole D.V.W. business. It has put us in
a false relation which was exasperating me and puzzling you.
Moreover the disguise was wea