there and then. It was very short, only a few lines
imploring the recipient to give her all news of Owen, while keeping the
secret of the writer's hiding place. Of herself Toni merely stated that
she was at work and content; but the few scribbled lines breathed a
spirit of misery, of supplication which would surely melt even the
hardest heart.

Having signed her name, and seen that the address at the top of the
sheet was correct, Toni hastily procured an envelope, thrust in the
fateful letter, and immediately slipped out of the house to post it.

Up to this moment she had acted impulsively, without giving herself time
to think, with possibly a lurking fear at the back of her mind that if
she stopped to consider she would tear up the letter instead of posting
it. But when once it had left her hand, when she had heard the thud it
made in falling into the almost empty box, a great terror seized Toni,
and she stood trembling in the deserted street, feeling that she would
give all she had to rescind her impetuous action.

But doubts and misgivings were alike useless now. The letter had passed
out of her keeping, and she must abide by her own deed, trusting
fervently that no further misfortune would follow her precipitancy.

Realizing at last that regrets were futile, Toni turned away and went
home, there to spend a sleepless night torturing herself with all sorts
of premonitions and visions of ill-luck.

But in her wildest flights of imaginative terror over the receipt of her
letter, and its consequences, Toni never approached the truth.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Toni's letter was delivered to Mrs. Herrick late one afternoon; and with
a slight feeling of wonder as to her correspondent's identity, Eva broke
the seal languidly and took out the thin foreign sheet without the least
notion that this letter was to her a veritable messenger of Fate.

It did not take her long to read the few scrawled lines in which Toni
proffered her desperate request; and when she had read them, Eva let the
sheet flutter to the floor while she pondered on the strange chance
which led the woman whose life she had helped to ruin to appeal to her
for aid.

The months which had passed since Toni's flight had not been happy ones
for Eva Herrick. On hearing of the part she had played in the
culminating catastrophe, her husband had felt at first that he could
barely find it in his heart to forgive such deliberate treachery; and
for a short space