‘Oh, you’re a flatterer.  And do you really feel better?’

‘Very much better.  I shall go to sleep very soon.’

The visitor took her leave.  When, a few minutes after, Monica had bidden good-night to her sister (requesting that the lamp might be left), she read what Mildred had brought.

’MY DEAREST MONICA,’—­the missive began—­’Why have you not written before this?  I have been dreadfully uneasy ever since receiving your last letter.  Your headache soon went away, I hope?  Why haven’t you made another appointment?  It is all I can do to keep from breaking my promise and coming to ask about you.  Write at once, I implore you, my dearest.  It’s no use telling me that I must not use these words of affection; they come to my lips and to my pen irresistibly.  You know so well that I love you with all my heart and soul; I can’t address you like I did when we first corresponded.  My darling!  My dear, sweet, beautiful little girl—­’

Four close pages of this, with scarce room at the end for ‘E.W.’  When she had gone through it, Monica turned her face upon the pillow and lay so for a long time.  A clock in the house struck eleven; this roused her, and she slipped out of the bed to hide the letter in her dress-pocket.  Not long after she was asleep.

The next day, on returning from her work and opening the sitting-room door, Mildred Vesper was greeted with a merry laugh.  Monica had been here since three o’clock, and had made tea in readiness for her friend’s arrival.  She looked very white, but her eyes gleamed with pleasure, and she moved about the room as actively as before.

’Virgie came with me, but she wouldn’t stay.  She says she has a most important letter to write to Alice—­about the school, of course.  Oh, that school!  I do wish they could make up their minds.  I’ve told them they may have all my money, if they like.’

’Have you?  I should like the sensation of offering hundreds of pounds to some one.  It must give a strange feeling of dignity and importance.’

‘Oh, only two hundred!  A wretched little sum.’

’You are a person of large ideas, as I have often told you.  Where did you get them, I wonder?’

’Don’t put on that face!  It’s the one I like least of all your many faces.  It’s suspicious.’

Mildred went to take off her things, and was quickly at the tea-table.  She had a somewhat graver look than usual, and chose rather to listen than talk.

Not long after tea, when there had been a long and unnatural silence, Mildred making pretence of absorption in a ‘Treasury’ and her companion standing at the window, whence she threw back furtive glances, the thunder of a postman’s knock downstairs caused both of them to start, and look at each other in a conscience-stricken way.

‘That may be for me,’ said Monica, stepping to the door.  ’I’ll go and look.’

Her conjecture was right.  Another letter from Widdowson, still more alarmed and vehement than the last.  She read it rapidly on the staircase, and entered the room with sheet and envelope squeezed together in her hand.