proximate list of the friends I possess to-day. Do you know
that if I marry you I shall be required to make an explanation to
several royal ladies--that is, if they graciously grant me the
opportunity so to do."

"But I want your mon--I mean I _love_ you," he pleaded, the light of
youth shining in his brown eyes.

The Little Grey Woman looked at him tenderly. Their eyes met.

"Listen," she said. "I will tell you the story of my first marriage, and
then if you wish you shall ask me again."

Dr. Dick helped himself to another slice of cake and leant back to
listen.

[_Mrs. Barclay. There you are. Now you can do Chapter Three._

_Hall Caine. Excellent. It is quite time that one got some emotion into
this story. In "The Woman Thou Gavest Me," of which more than a
million----_

_Mrs. Barclay. Emotion, indeed! My last book is already in its two
hundredth edition._

_Hall Caine_ (annoyed). _Tut!_]

CHAPTER III

MRS. BEAUCHAMP'S STORY

(MR. HALL CAINE _takes up the tale_)

I have always had a wonderful memory, and my earliest recollection is of
hearing my father ask, on the day when I was born, whether it was a boy
or a girl. When they told him "a girl," he let fall a rough expression
which sent the blood coursing over my mother's pale cheeks like
lobster-sauce coursing over a turbot. My father, John Boomster, was a
great advertising agent, perhaps the greatest in the island, though he
always said that there was one man who could beat him. He wanted a son
to succeed him in the business, and in the years to come he never
forgave me for being a girl. He would often glare at me in silence for
three-quarters of an hour, and then, letting fall the same rough
expression, throw a boot at me and stride from the room. A hard, cruel
man, my father, and yet, in his fashion, he was fond of me.

It was not until I was eighteen that he first spoke to me. To my dying
day I shall never forget that evening; nor his words, which bit
themselves into my mind as a red-hot iron bites its way into cheese.

"Nell," he said, for that was my name, though he had never used it
before, "I've arranged that you are to marry Lord Wurzel two months from
to-day."

At these terrible words the blood ebbed slowly from my ears and my hands
grew hot.

"I do not know him," I said in a stifled voice.

"You will to-morrow," he laughed brutally, and with another rough word
he strode from the room.

Lord Wurzel! I ran upstairs to my room and fl