eed" with him when he heard such base
opinions?

The critic was fingering with apparent satisfaction a pile of MSS. that
lay on the table. It had grown vastly since Archie saw it the last time,
and must be fifteen or twenty chapters in extent now.

"You must not go away until you have finished this wonderful work,"
replied Gouger, with concern. "A few more months--a little further
experience in life--and your reputation will be made! Ah, it is
wonderful! It is magnificent! The world will ring with your praises
before the year is ended. Such fidelity to nature! Such perfection of
detail! In all my career I have never seen anything to approach it!"

Shirley moved uneasily in his chair.

"Do you ever think at what cost I have done this?" he asked. "I know the
pain of a burn because I have held my hands in the fire. I know the
agony of asphyxiation, because I have dangled at the end of a rope. I
can write of the miner buried beneath a hundred feet of clay, because I
have had the load fall on my own head. To love and find myself beloved;
then to see happiness snatched without explanation from my grasp; to
feel that my best friend has been the one to betray me! That is what I
have passed through, and from the drops of misery thus distilled, I have
penned those lines you so much admire. I have written all I can of these
horrors. I will not begin again till I have caught somewhere in the
great sky a glimpse of sunlight!"

Mr. Weil could wait no longer. He pushed open the door and went to the
speaker's side.

"The sunlight is awaiting you," he said, gazing down upon the figure in
the armchair. "You have only to raise your curtain."

Mr. Gouger sprang up in astonishment at the sudden arrival, and perhaps
a little in alarm also; for he could not tell how long the visitor had
been eavesdropping at the portal. But Roseleaf turned his languid eyes
toward his old friend, and was silent.

"Shirley, my boy," pursued Weil, with the utmost earnestness, "I can
prove to you now that Daisy Fern loves you and you alone."

Roseleaf did not move. His lips opened and the words came stiffly.

"You can promise many things," he said, "but can you fulfill any of
them?"

So cold, so unlike himself!

"What will convince you?" demanded Weil. "Shall I bring a letter from
her? Or would you rather she came in person, to tell you I speak the
truth?"

The shadow of a smile, a smile that was not agreeable, hovered around
the corners of the p