ll for? A thousand things may happen if you carry
out this hairbrained scheme of yours. She may even want to marry. She is
good-looking enough. You might easily lose her altogether."

Powers was suddenly pale. There were, indeed, many possibilities which
he had not seriously considered. Yet he never hesitated.

"I must keep my word to her," he said. "I shall do it at all costs."

"You are a fool," Trowse declared bluntly. "Make her your wife. Bind her
to you. Make sure of her."

Powers walked to the door with his visitor.

"It is useless to argue with you," he said. "We look at the matter from
different points of view. The girl risked her life to gain a certain
end. She has won, and she shall have her reward."

* * * * *

With the passage of the months, Eleanor, little by little, entered upon
a strange new life in accordance with what had been promised her.
Through the London social season she went about with Lady Fiske and was
admired and sought after everywhere. It was as though a magician had
touched her face, and there had passed away from it all sense of
trouble, all evil memories, every trace of suffering. The troubled mouth
seemed ever ready to break into laughter, the faint lines and wrinkles
had faded completely away. She was years younger. The light of past
sorrows had gone from her eyes, they remained only the mirror of the
brightest and gayest things in life. In her youth, her beauty, and her
almost assertive _joie de vivre_ she seemed like a child among the
little company by whom she was constantly surrounded wherever she went
in her soulless, indefatigable quest for amusement.

"Are you not afraid, Eleanor, that some day you will grow tired of
amusing yourself?" Powers asked her one night at a dinner where she had
outshone all others.

A peal of light, sweet laughter rang out above the babel of
conversation. Everyone looked toward Eleanor's table. She was leaning a
little forward in her chair, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed, her
eyes alight with enjoyment. A single row of pearls encircled her long,
graceful neck, her shoulders and bare arms were dazzlingly soft, her
hair gleamed in the shaded lamplight.

"No! Why on earth should I? What else is there to do?"

"What about amusing other people sometimes--by way of change?"

She smiled delightfully.

"How dull! I suppose you mean have a night class for boys, or get up
concerts to send ragged children to the s