s--I really forget your name."

"My name is Keys--Bertha Keys. Other well-known magazines will pay me
for all I can write for them; but I am willing to give you the _whole_
of my writings, say for three months, if you are willing to pay me
according to my own ideas."

"What are those?"

"You must double your pay to me. You can, if you like, publish this
little story about Florence and myself in some of your society gossip--I
do not mind at all--or you can keep it quiet. You have but to say in
one of your issues that the _nom de plume_ under which your talented
author wrote is, for reasons of her own, changed. You can give me a
fresh title. The world will suspect mystery and run after me more than
ever. I think that is the principal thing I have to say to you. Now, may
I wish you good-morning?"

Bertha rose as she spoke, dropped a light mocking curtsey in Franks's
direction, and let herself out of the room before he had time to realize
that she was leaving.

CHAPTER XLVII.

FINIS.

It is, alas! true in this world that often the machinations of the
wicked prosper. By all the laws of morality Bertha Keys ought to have
come to condign punishment; she ought to have gone under; she ought to
have disappeared from society; she ought to have been hooted and
disliked wherever she showed her face.

These things were by no means the case, however. Bertha, playing a
daring game, once more achieved success.

By means of threatening to take her work elsewhere she secured admirable
terms for her writing--quite double those which had been given to poor
Florence. She lived in the best rooms in Prince's Mansions, and before a
year had quite expired she was engaged to Tom Franks. He married her,
and report whispers that they are by no means a contented couple. It is
known that Franks is cowed, and at home at least obeys his wife. Bertha
rules with a rod of iron; but perhaps she is not happy, and perhaps her
true punishment for her misdeeds has begun long ago.

Meanwhile Florence, released from the dread of discovery, her conscience
once more relieved from its burden of misery, bloomed out into
happiness, and also into success.

Florence wrote weekly to Trevor, and Trevor wrote to her, and his love
for her grew as the days and weeks went by. The couple had to wait some
time before they could really marry, but during that time Florence
learned some of the best lessons in life. She was soon able to support
herself, for