_... You will probably receive a call from my esteemed parents. They mean well, but I mistrust their judgment. They will probably intimate that we must never see one another again, or something of that kind. I am afraid it is just possible that my dear old mother will offer you compensation, of a sort. If she does, try to forgive her. She does not understand. Not at present, that is. One day she will laugh at herself--which will establish a record--and apologise to you for having entertained the idea._ "No, she won’t!" observed Tilly at this point. _... It seems ridiculous, does n’t it, that any one should seriously set out to appeal to you to "abandon your demands" upon me? As if things were not entirely the other way. It is I who am making demands upon you, dearest. The idea! To lecture you as if you were some designing little adventuress, instead of the most wonderful worker of miracles that ever lived--the girl who made bricks without straw--the girl who made a man of Dicky Mainwaring!_ _... So do not be afraid with any amazement--do you know where that quotation comes from?--at anything my mother may say. She will probably pile on the agony a bit about the various kinds of trouble that await a couple who marry out of different social circles, and punk of that kind. She is a dear thing, my old mother, but very feminine. When she wants to argue about anything she always begins by begging the question. Besides, our love is big enough to square any circle, social or otherwise. So don’t you worry, little girl. Leave things to me, and--_ Tilly read more slowly and yet more slowly, and then stopped reading altogether. Then she rose slowly to her feet, crossed the room, and stood gazing into the fire. She did not know what begging the question meant, but she had other food for reflection. Connie Carmyle was right. When it comes to a pinch, letters are useless things, and being useless are, more often than not, dangerous. On the mantelpiece stood two framed photographs--one of Tilly, the other of Dicky. The original of the first addressed the second. "I wish you had n’t put in that last bit, Dicky dear ... ’_Abandon my demands_’ ... ’_A little adventuress_.’ ... That’s what I am, when all is said and done. A little adventuress, trying to better herself! Lady Adela is right and we were wrong. What else could you think of me, Dicky, once you married me and found me out--a silly, hysterical, common little chit? ... There’s your letter, dear. I dare say I could have got quite a lot for it in a court of law; but some adventuresses are n’t up to sample. They have no spirit." Dicky’s much-read epistle dropped into the flames, and Tilly turned with sudden briskness from her lover’s photograph to her own.