he said, blandly.

Donovan looked up with a strange gleam in his eyes.

"Not for the world!" he exclaimed, with a touch of indignation in his
tone.

And after that he only spoke to Erica, who, seeing that the chemist
had annoyed him undertook all the fetching and carrying, never once
shrinking though the sight was a horrible one. At length the footman
brought word that Mrs. Fane-Smith was waiting, and she was obliged to
go, reluctantly enough.

"You'll let me know how he gets on?" she said.

"Yes, indeed," he replied, not thanking her directly for her help, but
somehow sending her away with the consciousness that they had passed the
bounds of mere acquaintanceship, and were friends for life.

She found that her aunt had been waylaid by Mr. Cuthbert.

"If I were the owner of the dog, I should have up our honorable member
for assault. I believe Miss Raeburn broke her umbrella over the poor
thing."

Erica was just in time to hear this.

"Were you watching it?" she exclaimed. "And you did nothing to help the
fox terrier?"

"I do not feel bound to champion every fighting cur who is getting
the worst of it," said Mr. Cuthbert. "What has become of Mr. Farrant's
favorite? I suppose he is fussing over it instead of studying the
affairs of the nation."

"I am afraid the dog is dying," said Erica.

A curious change passed over Mr. Cuthbert's face; he looked a little
shocked, and turned away somewhat hastily.

"Come," thought Erica to herself, "I am glad to have discovered a grain
of good in you."

The next day was Sunday; it passed by very quietly. But on the Monday,
when Erica opened the "Daily Review," there was her "Society" article
staring her in the face. It was clever and eminently readable, but it
was bitterly sarcastic; she could not endure it. It seemed to her that
she had written what was positively bad, calculated to mislead and to
awaken bitterness, not in the least likely to mend matters. The fact was
she had written it in a moment of passion and against her conscience,
and she regretted it now with far more compunction than she felt for
anything she had written in former times in the "Idol-Breaker." Then,
though indirectly and sometimes directly attacking Christianity, she had
written conscientiously, now for the first time she felt that she had
dishonored her pen. She went down into the very deepest depths.

The midday post brought her a letter from her stiff old editor, who
understood her bette