girl than a boy," feared Tommy: "I
seem to have so many womanish failings."

Peter took himself into quite places and trained himself to face the fact
that another would be more to her than he had ever been, and Clodd went
about his work like a bear with a sore head; but they neither of them
need have troubled themselves so much. The marriage did not take place
till nearly fifteen years had passed away, and much water had to flow
beneath old London Bridge before that day.

The past is not easily got rid of. A tale was once written of a woman
who killed her babe and buried it in a lonely wood, and later stole back
in the night and saw there, white in the moonlight, a child's hand
calling through the earth, and buried it again and yet again; but always
that white baby hand called upwards through the earth, trample it down as
she would. Tommy read the story one evening in an old miscellany, and
sat long before the dead fire, the book open on her lap, and shivered;
for now she knew the fear that had been haunting her.

Tommy lived expecting her. She came one night when Tommy was alone,
working late in the office. Tommy knew her the moment she entered the
door, a handsome woman, with snake-like, rustling skirts. She closed the
door behind her, and drawing forward a chair, seated herself the other
side of the desk, and the two looked long and anxiously at one another.

"They told me I should find you here alone," said the woman. "It is
better, is it not?"

"Yes," said Tommy, "it is better."

"Tell me," said the woman, "are you very much in love with him?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Because, if not--if you have merely accepted him thinking him a good
catch--which he isn't, my dear; hasn't a penny to bless himself with, and
never will if he marries you--why, then the matter is soon settled. They
tell me you are a business-like young lady, and I am prepared to make a
business-like proposition."

There was no answer. The woman shrugged her shoulders.

"If, on the other hand, you are that absurd creature, a young girl in
love--why, then, I suppose we shall have to fight for him."

"It would be more sporting, would it not?" suggested Tommy.

"Let me explain before you decide," continued the woman. "Dick Danvers
left me six months ago, and has kept from me ever since, because he loved
me."

"It sounds a curious reason."

"I was a married woman when Dick Danvers and I first met. Since he left
me--for my s