"Oh, but I did want him to take it," said Doris. "Though, really," she added, "I don’t know what I should have done without it. He does not know that I have given up my lucrative business," she said in conclusion. "He thought it all right." "Have you heard from him lately?" asked Alice. "Not very lately. He wrote to tell me of his safe arrival in Yorkshire, and that his mother was very kind in nursing him. And then he wrote again, to tell me he had been very ill, and mentioned that his mother worried him considerably by endeavouring to induce him to do things which were utterly distasteful to him. ’But this is a free country,’ he wrote, ’and I shall do as I please.’ Since then," Doris continued, "I have heard nothing; indeed, I have not written much lately." The two girls sat there talking for some time, and then went to get some lunch at Alice’s expense. On the day following, Doris commenced work as Alice’s assistant account-collector. But, being thoroughly run down and out of health, she found her duties extremely arduous and fatiguing. She was not adapted for the work, and it was to her most irksome and unpleasant to have to ask people for money. She would rather have given it to them. When they were disagreeable--and, as Alice had said, it was rarely indeed that people could be pleasant when they were asked for money by an account-collector--Doris had the most absurd inclination to apologise and hurry away. In fact, she did that more than once, and had to be severely scolded by Alice for neglecting her duties. It was in vain, however, that Alice lectured and coached her; Doris was much too tender-hearted to make a good collector. When people began to make excuses for not paying their debts it was only with difficulty she could refrain from assisting them to do so; her sympathy was always on their side, consequently she did not earn much of a percentage. Alice paid her liberally, as liberally indeed as she could afford to do, for she had her "Lion" to keep, and her means were limited; but Doris earned barely enough money to pay her rent for the garret and for the food with which Mrs. Austin supplied her, and, in consequence, her clothes grew shabbier and her health became worse every day. She did not hear from Bernard, and was often despondent and hopeless about the future. How could she possibly pay him back any money out of the trifling sums she was earning? And he would not take it if she could. He would rather remain poor, and there could never be any marriage between her and Bernard Cameron. *CHAPTER XIX.* *A POWERFUL TEMPTATION.* When shall this wonderful web be done! In a thousand years, perhaps, or one-- Or to-morrow: who knoweth? Not you or I, But the wheels turn on and the shuttles fly.