Florence perused this letter two or three times; then she put it in her
pocket and entered her bed-room. She did not quite know what she was
doing. She felt a little giddy, but there was a queer, unaccountable
sense of relief all over her. On her desk lay her own neat copy of the
story which she was preparing for the _Argonaut_. By the side of the
desk also was quite a pile of letters from different publishers offering
her work and good pay. These letters Tom Franks insisted on her either
taking no notice of or merely writing to decline the advantageous
offers. She took them up now.

"Messrs. So-and-so would be glad to see Miss Aylmer. They could offer
her...." And then came terms which would have made the mouths of most
girls water. Or Florence received a letter asking her if she would
undertake to write three or four stories for such a paper, the terms to
be what she herself liked to ask. She looked at them all wistfully. It
is true she had not yet lighted a fire in her room, but she put a match
to it now, in order to burn the publishers' letters. The story she was
copying was about half-done. She had meant to finish it from Bertha's
manuscript before she went out. She smiled to herself as she looked.

"I need never finish it now," she thought.

Just as this thought came to her she heard a tap at her door. It was a
messenger with a note. She told him to wait, and opened it. It was from
Franks.

"I quite forgot when I saw you an hour ago to ask you to let me
have manuscript of the next story without fail this evening.
Can you send it now by messenger, or shall he call again for it
within a couple of hours? This is urgent.

"THOMAS FRANKS."

Florence sat down and wrote a brief reply.

"I am very sorry, but you cannot have manuscript to-night.

"FLORENCE AYLMER."

The messenger departed with this note, and Florence dressed herself to
go out, and she went quickly downstairs. She walked until she saw the
special omnibus which she was looking for. She was taken straight to
Hampstead, and she walked up the steep hill until she found the little
cottage which she had visited months ago in the late summer-time.
Florence went to the door, and a neat servant with an apple-blossom face
opened it.

"Is Mrs. Trevor in?" asked Florence.

"Yes, miss; what name shall I say?"

Florence gave her name: "Miss Florence Aylmer."

She was immediately ushered into the snug drawing-room, brigh