“Yes,” replied Quincy.  “Just before I went to Boston last Saturday I got a letter from Leopold, asking me to call on him as soon as convenient.  I found him at home Sunday evening, and this is what he said.  The New York house has accepted your series of eight detective stories, and will pay you twenty-five dollars for each of them.  The house will send you a check from time to time, as they publish them.  Leopold has accepted your long story for the magazine published by the house for which he is reader.  He says Jameson will get your other story into one of the Sunday papers, and he will have his dramatic version ready for production next fall.  He can’t tell how much you will make out of these just yet; the magazine pays by the page and the newspaper by the column, and, of course, Jameson will give you part of his royalty, if he gets the play on.”

“Why, Mr. Sawyer, you are showering wealth upon me like another Count of Monte Cristo.”

“But you have not heard all,” continued Quincy.  “Leopold has placed your two songs with a music publishing house, and you will get a royalty on them in time.  He says they don’t pay any royalty on the first three hundred copies, and perhaps they won’t sell; the public taste on sheet music is very fickle.  Then, that composer, I can never remember his name, is at work on your poem, ‘The Lord of the Sea.’  He told Leopold he was going to make it his opus vitae, the work of his life, you know, and he is talking it up to the director of the Handel and Haydn Society.”

“How true it is,” said Alice, “that gladness quickly follows sadness!  I was so unhappy this morning”, but now the world never looked so bright to me.  You have brushed away all my sorrows, Mr. Sawyer, and I am really very happy to hear the good news that you have told me.”

“There is one sorrow that I have not yet relieved you of,” continued Quincy.

“And that?” asked Alice, brushing back the wavy golden hair from her forehead, and looking up at him with her bright blue eyes, which bore no outward sign of the dark cloud that dimmed their vision,—­“and that is?”—­she repeated.

“That letter,” taking the hand that held it in both of his own.  “If I am to get that noon train I have no time to lose.”

“Before you take it,” said Alice, “you must promise me that it shall not be opened, and no eye but Lindy’s must ever rest upon it.”

“You have my word,” he replied.

“Then take it,” said she; and she released her hold upon it.

He took the letter with one hand, his other hand still retaining its grasp upon hers.

“I go,” said Quincy, assuming a bantering tone, “upon your quest, fair lady.  If I return victorious, what shall be my reward?”

“Gallant knights,” said Alice, as she withdrew her hand from his, “do not bargain for their reward until they have fulfilled their trust.”

“I accept the reproof,” said Quincy gravely.