dings had called up, but he felt that he
was working uphill and against heavy odds. Nevertheless he completed the
work, and spent much time in fancied improvement of its details. At a
later period in his life he wrote three successful books in the time he
had bestowed upon his first failure, but he wrote them alone.

Gloria's face brightened when he told her that it was done. She took the
manuscript and read over parts of it to herself, smiling a little from
time to time, for she knew that he was watching her. She did not read it
all.

"Dedicate it to me," she said, holding out one hand to find his, while
she settled the pages on her knees with the other.

"Of course," he answered, and he wrote a few words of dedication to her
on a sheet of paper.

He sent it to a publisher in London whom he knew. It was returned with
some wholesome advice, and Gloria's vanity suffered another blow, both
in the failure of the book which contained so many of her ideas and in
the failure of the man to be successful, for in her previous life she
had not been accustomed to failure of any sort.

"I am afraid I am only a newspaper man, after all," said Paul Griggs,
quietly. "You will have to be satisfied with me as I am. But I will try
again."

"No," answered Gloria, more coldly than she usually spoke. "When you
find that you cannot do a thing naturally, leave it alone. It is of no
use to force talent in one direction when it wants to go in another."

She sighed softly, and busied herself with some work. Griggs felt that
he was a failure, and he felt lonely, too, for a moment, and went to his
own room to put away the rejected manuscript in a safe place. It was not
his nature to destroy it angrily, as some men might have done at his
age.

When he came back to the door of the sitting-room he heard her singing,
as she often did when she was alone. But to-day she was singing an old
song which he had not heard for a long time, and which reminded him
painfully of that other house in which she had lived and of that other
man whom she never saw, but who was still her husband.

He entered the room rather suddenly, after having paused a moment
outside, with his hand on the door.

"Please do not sing that song!" he said quickly, as he entered.

"Why not?" she asked, interrupting herself in the middle of a stave.

"It reminds me of unpleasant things."

"Does it? I am sorry. I will not sing it again."

But she knew what it meant, for it r