in Paris--I need not tell you who. To-night, at a
house where I was, he had told several people that you and I had
been to Paris together...."

Micky had gone on writing rapidly--he seemed to have lost himself in a
sea of eloquence; his heart was pleading with the woman he loved
through the poor medium of a sheet of unaddressed paper.

"It nearly drove me mad to hear you spoken of by him. There was a
scene, and I knocked him down ... you will hate me for this, but I
would have killed him if they had let me. I told them afterwards
that you were my wife--try and understand how I have suffered all
these weeks--I told them that we had been married some time, and
that it had been kept secret by your own wish. It's only now, when
I am more alone and can think clearly, that I see what I have
done. You don't care for me, and I have compromised you even more
than that man did by his lying insinuations. Tell me what I am to
do--anything, anything in the world. My whole life is yours to do
with as you will. Be my wife, dear, be my wife...."

For a moment the pen faltered, but Micky went on again with an
effort.

"I will stay in London twenty-four hours for your answer, and
then, if I don't hear...."

The pen faltered again, and this time finally stopped.

CHAPTER XXXVI

"The question is," said June critically, looking out of the window to
the street where a fine drizzle of rain was falling, "does one, or
does one not, wear one's best hat to go out and meet the one and only
man one has ever loved?" She turned round and looked at Esther with a
little nod. "That's grammar, though you may not think it, my dear,"
she said.

Esther laughed.

"I should say one does wear one's best hat," she said decidedly.
"Especially seeing what a very charming hat it is."

She leaned her elbows on the table and looked at June admiringly. "How
long is it since you saw the great and only?" she asked.

June did some rapid counting on her white fingers.

"Nineteen hours exactly," she said. "But it seems like ninety! I
nearly died with joy when his note came at breakfast time----" She
looked at Esther wistfully. "You don't know how lovely it is to have
some one of your very own," she said with unwonted sentimentality.

Esther averted her eyes.

"I envy you," she said quietly. "But you'll be late if you stand
rhapsodising here--be off!"

June bent and kissed her.

"I shan't be long--he's only asked