on a beautiful
autumn morning he and Toni set off in the car on a journey to town,
where a publisher, who was also a personal friend, was waiting to
receive the manuscript.

Mr. Anson was a kindly, energetic man of middle age; and he had secretly
long expected Owen to turn novelist; so that he accepted the bulky
manuscript with a real curiosity as to its value.

He promised to let the author know his decision at an early date; and
then invited Owen and his wife to lunch with him at the Carlton, an
invitation which Owen accepted at once, rather to Toni's dismay.

They were his sole guests; and beneath his kind and courteous manner,
Toni lost her shyness and charmed her host by her girlish simplicity and
directness.

It happened that the conversation turned on the bungalows which lined
the banks of the river as it flowed through Willowhurst; and presently
Mr. Anson asked a question.

"You've got Vyse down there, haven't you? You know the chap I mean--the
portrait-painter."

"I don't think so." Owen was puzzled. "At least I have not heard of him
being there. Have you, Toni?"

"Yes--Mr. Anson means Mr. Herrick," said Toni quietly. "He told me the
other day he had changed his name."

"Ah yes, I remember now--something about some money, I believe. You know
him, Mrs. Rose?"

"Yes. He fished me out of the river one day when I had fallen in," said
Toni smiling. "And he has been to see us several times--but I didn't
know he was famous," she finished naively.

"Didn't you? Why, he is--or was--one of the foremost men in his own line
until there was the trouble with his wife."

"Surely you don't mean that jewel affair?" Owen asked meditatively.
"Didn't Vyse's wife steal a pearl necklace or something of the sort? I
seem to remember something about it--though I did not connect it with
this chap."

"His wife--who was one of the prettiest Irish girls I ever saw--got a
valuable necklace on approval and pawned it for money to pay her debts,
yes. Poor fellow, it broke him up completely."

"Really?" Owen was interested. "Where is she--the wife--now? Did he
leave her, or what happened?"

"She is in prison," returned the other man slowly. "I understand her
time is nearly up, and I am wondering what they will do when she comes
out again."

"In prison--ah yes, I recollect the affair now, though I was away at the
time. Got eighteen months, didn't she?"

"Yes. It was the most painful experience I've ever had, to listen to he