ed, in an unsteady voice, 'what's all this
about?'

'Somebody seems to have got here before you,' replied Sidney, smiling.

'How the devil am I to keep any self-respect if you go on treatin' me
in this fashion?' blustered John, hanging his head.

'It isn't my doing, Mr. Hewett.'

'Whose, then?'

'A friend's. Don't make a fuss. You shall know the person some day.'

CHAPTER XXIII

ON THE EVE OF TRIUMPH

'I have got your letter, but it tells me no more than the last did. Why
don't you say plainly what you mean? I suppose it's something you are
ashamed of. You say that there's a chance for me of earning a large sum
of money, and if you are in earnest, I shall be only too glad to hear
how it's to be done. This life is no better than what I used to lead
years ago; I'm no nearer to getting a good part than I was when I first
began acting, and unless I can get money to buy dresses and all the
rest of it, I may go on for ever at this hateful drudgery. I shall take
nothing more from you: I say it, and I mean it; but as you tell me that
this chance has nothing to do with yourself, let me know what it really
is. For a large sum of money there are few things I wouldn't do. Of
course it's something disgraceful, but you needn't be afraid on that
account; I haven't lost all my pride yet, but I know what I'm fighting
for, and I won't be beaten. Cost what it may, I'll make people hear of
me and talk of me, and I'll pay myself back for all I've gone through.

So write in plain words, or come and see me.

C. V.'

She wrote at a round table, shaky on its central support, in the
parlour of an indifferent lodging-house; the October afternoon drew
towards dusk; the sky hung low and murky, or, rather, was itself
invisible, veiled by the fume of factory chimneys; a wailing wind
rattled the sash and the door. A newly lighted fire refused to flame
cheerfully, half smothered in its own smoke, which every now and then
was blown downwards and out into the room. The letter
finished--scribbled angrily with a bad pen and in pale ink--she put it
into its envelope--'C. H. Scawthorne, Esq.'

Then a long reverie, such as she always fell into when alone and
unoccupied. The face was older, but not greatly changed from that of
the girl who fought her dread fight with temptation, and lost it, in
the lodging at Islington, who, then as now, brooded over the wild
passions in her heart and defied the world that was her enemy. Still a
beautiful