was an earl--an Irish one. I couldn't get the
advertisement out of my head. It fascinated me."

"No wonder!" exclaimed Mr. Smith. He had been listening intently, and
though she had paused, panting a little, more than once, he had not
broken in with a word.

"Do you _honestly_ think it no wonder?" Annesley flashed at him.

"It was like a prisoner seeing a key sticking in a door that has always
been locked," he said.

"How strange you should think of that!" she cried. "It was the thought
which came into my mind, and seemed to excuse me if anything could."
Annesley felt grateful to the man. She was sure she could never have
explained herself in this way or pleaded her own cause with the real Mr.
Smith. A man cold-blooded enough to advertise for a wife "well-born and
able to command a certain position in society" would have frozen her into
an ice-block of reserve.

She might possibly have accepted his "proposition" (one couldn't speak of
it in the ordinary way as a "proposal"), provided that, on seeing her, he
had judged her suitable for the place; but she could never have talked
her heart out to him as she was led on to do by this other man, equally
a stranger, yet sympathetic because of his own trouble and the mystery
which made of him a figure of romance.

"It isn't strange I should think of the prison door and the key," her
companion said. "That was the situation. 'N. Smith' was rather clever in
his way. There must be many girls of good family and good looks who are
in prison, pining to escape. He must have had a lot of answers, that
fellow; but none of the girls could have come within a mile of you. I'm
selfish! I bless my lucky stars he didn't turn up here."

"I dare say it's the best thing that could happen," Annesley agreed with
a sigh. "Probably he's horrible. But there was one thing: I thought,
though he must be a snob and vulgar, advertising as he did for a wife of
good birth, that very thing looked as if he were no _worse_ than a snob.
Not a villain, I mean. Otherwise, I shouldn't have dared answer. But I
did answer the same day, while I had the courage. I posted a letter with
some of Mrs. Ellsworth's, which she sent me out to drop into the box. His
address was 'N. S., the _Morning Post_'; and I told him to send a reply,
if he wrote, to the stationery shop and library where Mrs. Ellsworth
makes me go every day to change her books."

"And the answer? What was it like? What impression did it give you?"
qu