when interviewed, Mr. Brandes was nursing a black eye and a badly
swollen lip, which, according to him, he had acquired in a playful
sparring encounter with his business manager, Mr. Benjamin Stull.

And that was all; the big town had neither time nor inclination to
notice either Brandes or Venem any further; Broadway completed the
story for its own edification, and, by degrees, arrived at its own
conclusions. Only nobody could discover who was the young girl
concerned, or where she came from or what might be her name. And,
after a few days, Broadway, also, forgot the matter amid the tarnished
tinsel and raucous noises of its own mean and multifarious
preoccupations.

CHAPTER XIII

LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GIRL

Neeland had several letters from Ruhannah Carew that autumn and
winter. The first one was written a few weeks after her arrival in
Paris:

* * * * *

Dear Mr. Neeland:

Please forgive me for writing to you, but I am homesick.

I have written every week to mother and have made my letters read as
though I were still married, because it would almost kill her if she
knew the truth.

Some day I shall have to tell her, but not yet. Could you tell me how
you think the news ought to be broken to her and father?

_That man_ was not on the steamer. I was quite ill crossing the ocean.
But the last two days I went on deck with the Princess Mistchenka and
her maid, and I enjoyed the sea.

The Princess has been so friendly. I should have died, I think,
without her, what with my seasickness and homesickness, and brooding
over my terrible fall. I know it is immoral to say so, but I did not
want to live any longer, truly I didn't. I even asked to be taken. I
am sorry now that I prayed that way.

Well, I have passed through the most awful part of my life, I think. I
feel strange and different, as though I had been very sick, and had
died, and as though it were another girl sitting here writing to you,
and not the girl who was in your studio last August.

I had always expected happiness some day. Now I know I shall never
have it. Girls dream many foolish things about the future. They have
such dear, silly hopes.

All dreams are ended for me; all that remains in life for me is to
work very hard so that I can learn to support myself and my parents. I
should like to make a great deal of money so that when I die I can
leave it to charity. I desire to be remembered for