“Faithfully yours,

“Cecil Holsworthy.”

“Nothing more than that?” he asked, looking up and biting his pen.  “Not a word of regret or apology?”

“Not a word,” I answered.  “You are really too lenient.”

I made him take it out and post it before he could invent conscientious scruples.  Then he turned to me irresolutely.  “What shall I do next?” he asked, with a comical air of doubt.

I smiled.  “My dear fellow, that is a matter for your own consideration.”

“But—­do you think she will laugh at me?”

“Miss Montague?”

“No!  Daphne.”

“I am not in not in Daphne’s confidence,” I answered.  “I don’t know how she feels.  But, on the face of it, I think I can venture to assure you that at least she won’t laugh at you.”

He grasped my hand hard.  “You don’t mean to say so!” he cried.  “Well, that’s really very, kind of her!  A girl of Daphne’s high type!  And I, who feel myself so utterly unworthy of her!”

“We are all unworthy of a good woman’s love,” I answered.  “But, thank Heaven, the good women don’t seem to realise it.”

That evening, about ten, my new friend came back in a hurry to my rooms at St. Nathaniel’s.  Nurse Wade was standing there, giving her report for the night when he entered.  His face looked some inches shorter and broader than usual.  His eyes beamed.  His mouth was radiant.

“Well, you won’t believe it, Dr. Cumberledge,” he began; “but—­”

“Yes, I do believe it,” I answered.  “I know it.  I have read it already.”

“Read it!” he cried.  “Where?”

I waved my hand towards his face.  “In a special edition of the evening papers,” I answered, smiling.  “Daphne has accepted you!”

He sank into an easy chair, beside himself with rapture.  “Yes, yes; that angel!  Thanks to you, she has accepted me!”

“Thanks to Miss Wade,” I said, correcting him.  “It is really all her doing.  If she had not seen through the photograph to the face, and through the face to the woman and the base little heart of her, we might never have found her out.”

He turned to Hilda with eyes all gratitude.  “You have given me the dearest and best girl on earth,” he cried, seizing both her hands.

“And I have given Daphne a husband who will love and appreciate her,” Hilda answered, flushing.

“You see,” I said, maliciously; “I told you they never find us out, Holsworthy!”

As for Reggie Nettlecraft and his wife, I should like to add that they are getting on quite as well as could be expected.  Reggie has joined his Sissie on the music-hall stage; and all those who have witnessed his immensely popular performance of the Drunken Gentleman before the Bow Street Police Court acknowledge without reserve that, after “failing for everything,” he has dropped at last into his true vocation.  His impersonation of the part is said to be “nature itself.”  I see no reason to doubt it.