“Yes,” replied Max, quickly. “It is a thousand pities. She’s far too refined and good for that life.”

“A matter of unfortunate necessity, I suppose.”

Necessity! Max Barclay bit his lips when he recollected how very easily she might leave that shop-life if she would only accept money from him. But how could she? How could he offer it to her without insult?

No. Until she consented to be his wife she must still remain there, at the beck and call of every irritating tradesman’s wife who cared to enter the department to purchase a ready-made costume or a skirt “with material for bodice.”

“I’m sorry for Marion,” Dr Petrovitch went on. “She frequently comes here of an evening, and often on Sundays to keep Maud company. They get on most excellently together.”

“Yes; she is devoted to Maud. She has told me so.”

“I believe she is,” Petrovitch said. “And yet it is unfortunate, for friendliness with Marion must also mean continued friendliness with her brother.”

“Ah! I see now that you do not like him,” Max said, openly, for he could not now fail to see from his friend’s expression that something had occurred. What it was he was utterly unable to make out.

“No, I don’t,” was the ex-Minister’s plain, determined answer. “And to tell you the truth, I have other views regarding Maud’s future. So just tell the young man whatever you think proper. Only request him neither to call here, nor to attempt to see the child again!”

Chapter Three.

Tells of a Woman’s Love.

In the dull hazy London sunset Fopstone Road, which leads from Earl’s Court Road into Nevern Square, was quite deserted.

There is a silence and monotony in the eminently respectable thoroughfares in that particular district that, to their residents, is often very depressing. Traffic there is none save a stray hansom or a tradesman’s cart at long intervals, while street organs and even the muffin men avoid them because, unlike the poorer districts, they find no stray coppers and no customers.

On the same evening as the events recorded in the previous chapters, about six o’clock, just as the red dusky after-glow was deepening into twilight, Charlie Rolfe emerged from Earl’s Court Station, walked along 

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