ord of English, although he
would be ready to beat anyone that told him so. He did not have a chance
to say much yesterday; but I saw what his ideas were and that nothing
could change them.

"I did not go to sleep at all last night. I sat up trying to think what
I should do. Of course I need not tell him what I had done; but should I
give it up? That was the question. If I continued, I must tell him of my
intention to be a writer. He would forbid it. If I refused to obey,
which I do not think I have any right to do, he is quite capable of
locking me up. But I cannot go on writing in secret. That would be a
great wrong; it would be living a lie. I could not make myself believe
that I only wrote for the pleasure of writing: I should know that I
longed for the time when I should see my book on somebody's shelf. It
seems to me that I cannot give it up. I have much less in my life than
most girls. In spite of the hard work, I have felt almost happy while
writing. And I am afraid that I have as much ambition as pride. But he
is my father. My first duty is to him--I cannot make up my mind. I
suppose there should be no struggle; but there is, and I feel as if it
were killing me."

Trennahan had been the confidant of many women, had listened to many
tragic confessions, had seen women in agonies of remorse; but nothing
had ever touched him as did this bald statement, abrupt with repressed
feeling, of a girl's solitary tragedy. Had her hero been a lover instead
of an art, he would have met her confidence with platitudes and a
suppressed yawn; but her lonely attitude in the midst of millions and
friends, her terrible slavery to an ideal, to a scourging conscience
which was at war with all the secretiveness, self-indulgence, and
haughty intolerance of restraint which she had inherited with her
father's blood, interested him even more profoundly than it appealed to
his sympathies. He determined not only to help her, but to watch her
development.

"You have honoured me with your confidence," he said. "Don't doubt for a
moment that I do not appreciate the magnitude of that honour. I know
just how proud and reticent you are, how much it cost you to speak. I
believe that I have enough wisdom to help you a little. Go on with your
work. If you have a talent, you get it, one way or another, from your
parents, and it is as much entitled to your consideration as your health
or your riches. The birthright of every mortal is happiness. Some