to have a morbid foreboding that she
should not live to read it in the ordinary course. She was so ignorant
about writers that she did not know whether such a thing was ever done,
or could be done; but if he could tell her how the story was to come out
he would be doing more for her than anything else that could be done for
her on earth. She had read that sometimes authors began to print their
serial stories before they had written them to the end, and he might not
be sure of the end himself; but if he had finished this story of his,
and could let her see the last pages in print, she would owe him the
gratitude she could never express.

The letter was written in an educated hand, and there were no foibles
of form or excesses of fashion in the stationery to mar the character
of sincerity the simple wording conveyed. The postal address, with the
date, was fully given, and the name signed at the end was evidently
genuine.

Verrian himself had no question of the genuineness of the letter in
any respect; his mother, after her first misgivings, which were perhaps
sensations, thought as he did about it. She said the story dealt so
profoundly with the deepest things that it was no wonder a person,
standing like that girl between life and death, should wish to know how
the author solved its problem. Then she read the letter carefully over
again, and again Verrian read it, with an effect not different from that
which its first perusal had made with him. His faith in his work was so
great, so entire, that the notion of any other feeling about it was not
admissible.

"Of course," he said, with a sigh of satisfaction, "I must show the
letter to Armiger at once."

"Of course," his mother replied. "He is the editor, and you must not do
anything without his approval."

The faith in the writer of the letter, which was primary with him, was
secondary with her, but perhaps for that reason, she was all the more
firmly grounded in it.

II.

There was nothing to cloud the editor's judgment, when Verrian came to
him, except the fact that he was a poet as well as an editor. He read in
a silence as great as the author's the letter which Verrian submitted.
Then he remained pondering it for as long a space before he said, "That
is very touching."

Verrian jumped to his question. "Do you mean that we ought to send her
the proofs of the story?"

"No," the editor faltered, but even in this decision he did not deny the
author his s