can't I come out to you and be with you? We could get married, and
we should be ever so happy even if we have to be poor--at least, I
know I could, and from your letters, somehow I think it sounds as
if you, too, have realised that there isn't much happiness away
from me. I have had the offer of a good post--I won't tell you
what it is, as I want it to be a surprise to you if I do take it.
But if you would like me to come, I will just leave everything and
come to you. Couldn't you send me a wire when you get this letter?
I shall be longing and waiting to hear from you. I am a little bit
afraid in my heart, really, now I have written this, but your last
letter is lying beside me, and I keep peeping at it and reading
what you say there, and somehow I feel that it's going to be all
right.--

With all my love for ever and ever, LALLIE.

Mickey sat there staring down at her signature a long time after he
had reached the end.

Then he moved slowly as if it cost him an effort. He was rather pale
now, and there was a hard line round his mouth. So that was how she
thought of him! Somehow he had not imagined how much it would hurt to
read the fond words and to know all the time that they were written to
another man. And to a man so unworthy! He thought of Ashton as he had
seen him three nights ago with Mrs. Clare; of his callous questioning
about Esther; of his almost brutal remarks, and it made his blood
boil.

He could picture her so well--waiting for a wire that would never
come.

He hated Ashton at that moment. His brows almost met above his eyes in
a scowl as he went up to the bureau and asked for his bill. The
smiling French girl sobered a little meeting his gaze; for once she
did not dare to smile or dimple; she gave him his account silently.

"Ah, but they are funny, these English;" she told her father
afterwards. "To-day he had no smile, the tall monsieur--not even one
little smile!"

She watched Micky across the lounge with interested eyes as he sat
down at one of the tables and proceeded to write a letter. It took him
a long time, and twice she saw that he tore up what he had written and
flung it into the wastepaper basket, but at last he had finished, and
getting up, stalked away.

Celeste ventured out then--there was nobody about, and tiptoeing
across the lounge, took the torn papers from the paper-basket. They
were torn across and across, but on one or two