can break it to her better than you
can."

"Oh, must I? Oh, it will be hard for her."

"It will be hard, Celia; but no one can do it better than you. You will
soften the blow. She will realise her debt to you, through me. Tell her
that her future shall be cared for--but you know that I shall look after
that. Celia, you, who are so quick, so acute, have divined the truth. It
was for Miriam that I took on myself the forged cheque. I--cared for her
once; I thought I was in love with her. I thought so until that night
you came to me and stood like an angel of rescue between me and a
shameful death. As to Miriam's husband----"

Derrick paused and, looking down at her steadily, laid his hand on her
shoulder with an almost masterful pressure.

"--There must be nothing more said about him between us two, Celia," he
continued, with solemnity in his voice and manner. "He is gone; let him
go and take the past with him. But one word: Celia, it was Heyton who
wronged Susie, it was Heyton who forged the cheque; it was because Lady
Gridborough thought me guilty of wrecking Susie's life, that she cut me
that morning when she passed us at the gate by the wood. She knows the
truth now; for Reggie has got Susie to reveal it----"

"Reggie!" murmured Celia.

"Yes; he fell in love with Susie the first time he saw her; he has been
telling me all about it."

"And Susie yielded! I can scarcely believe it," said Celia, with a note
of delight in her voice.

"She yielded," said Derrick, with a smile. "Reggie is a wonderful young
man; and has a way with him, as the saying is. He must have laid hard
siege to Susie's heart--perhaps he won her through the child. Anyway, he
has done so; and, in doing so, has cleared my name."

"I am glad, glad!" Celia murmured, giving him a little hug. "Yes; he is
a wonderful young man; I saw that the first time I met him." She told
him of that meeting in the British Museum Reading Room. "Oh, I can quite
understand, now I come to think of it; with all her seeming coldness,
Susie has a tender heart. I've found that out----"

"By the surest way, the revelation of your own," said Derrick. He looked
round the room, as if everything in it were precious to him. "And this
is where you have worked," he said.

"Yes," she nodded, also looking round; "and I have been very happy
here--or should have been," she went on softly, her eyes on his, "if I
had been able to keep a certain man out of my thoughts. But he was the