g on that point at present. You want to get the Scholarship?"

"I must get it."

"You shall, with my aid."

"Now what do you mean?"

"It all depends on yourself, Florence. How much are you prepared to
sacrifice to win the Scholarship?"

"To sacrifice? to sacrifice?" Florence felt very uneasy. She tried to
wriggle away from her companion, who held her arm firmly. "To
sacrifice?" she repeated.

"Yes, that's just about it--how much?"

"Well, my time--my health even."

"You must go a little further than that, Florence, if you mean to win."

"What do you mean?"

"I will be quite plain with you," said Bertha. "If you are not
prepared to sacrifice more than your time, more than your health, you
will fail, for Kitty Sharston has what you have not. She has the
imaginative mind and the noble heart."

"Oh," said Florence. She colored, and tried to wriggle once again away
from her companion.

"I must speak plainly," said Bertha. "At a moment like this there is
no good beating about the bush. Kitty will write an essay on Heroism
which will win her the Scholarship; she will do so because she is
animated by a very great and noble love. She will do so because she
has got poetry in her composition. You must face that fact. As to
Mary Bateman, she is out of the running. She is a good girl and might
even go ahead of you were the theme not the supreme and final test; but
that being the test, Kitty will win. You may as well put down your
oars at once, Florence; you may as well lower your colors, if you
cannot compete with Kitty on her own ground."

"I know it; it is shockingly unfair."

"But all the same, you can win if you will make the supreme sacrifice."

"What is that?"

"The sacrifice of your honor."

"Oh, no; oh, no; oh, what do you mean?"

"That is what I mean. You can think it all over. I will make my
suggestion, for I know you won't betray me. I will write your essay
for you. I can do it. I can write on noble things; I am well
educated; I am to a certain extent a practiced writer. I may not have
Kitty's talent, but I have--what she has not--the practiced pen. She
will struggle, but she cannot succeed against me. I will write the
essay on Heroism, and you shall accept it as your work. Now, think it
over; don't answer me at once."

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FALL.

The remainder of that walk was taken in complete silence. Florence's
head felt as if it were going round. There was a