l in some way? Set me to work! I am convinced I should be so much
happier. Let me help you, Mr. Crewe. I write a pretty fair hand, don't
I?'

Crewe smiled at her, made a sound as if clearing his throat, grasped his
knee, and was on the very point of momentous utterance, when the door
opened. Turning his head impatiently, he saw, not the clerk whose duty
it was to announce people, but a lady, much younger than Mrs. Damerel,
and more fashionably dressed, who for some reason had preferred to
announce herself.

'Why do you come in like that?' Crewe demanded, staring at her. 'I'm
engaged.'

'Are you indeed?'

'You ought to send in your name.

'They said you had a lady here, so I told them another would make no
difference.--How do you do, Mrs. Damerel? It's so long since I had the
pleasure of seeing you.'

Beatrice French stepped forward, smiling ominously, and eyeing first
Crewe then his companion with curiosity of the frankest impertinence.
Mrs. Damerel stood up.

'We will speak of our business at another time, Mr. Crewe.'

Crewe, red with anger, turned upon Beatrice.

'I tell you I am engaged--'

'To Mrs. Damerel?' asked the intruder airily.

'You might suppose,'--he addressed the elder lady,--'that this woman has
some sort of hold upon me--'

'I'm sure I hope not,' said Mrs. Damerel, 'for your own sake.'

'Nothing of the kind. She has pestered me a good deal, and it began in
this way.'

Beatrice gave him so fierce a look, that his tongue faltered.

'Before you tell that little story,' she interposed, 'you had better
know what I've come about. It's a queer thing that Mrs. Damerel should
be here; happens more conveniently than things generally do. I had
something to tell you about her. You may know it, but most likely you
don't.--You remember,' she faced the other listener, 'when I came to see
you a long time ago, I said it might be worth while to find out who you
really were. I haven't given much thought to you since then, but I've
got hold of what I wanted, as I knew I should.'

Crewe did not disguise his eagerness to hear the rest. Mrs. Damerel
stood like a statue of British respectability, deaf and blind to
everything that conflicts with good-breeding; stony-faced, she had set
her lips in the smile appropriate to one who is braving torture.

'Do you know who she is--or not?' Beatrice asked of Crewe.

He shuffled, and made no reply.

'Fanny has just told me in a letter; she got it from her husban