It could not go on. Something was bound to happen. She had saved the life of Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs; and he had demonstrated his gratitude by promptly falling head over heels in love with her. So far, so good; or rather, so far, so bad, where a dashing young gentleman of expensive habits, small principle and remarkable fascination and a young person of the working classes are concerned. For the mischief of it was she had fallen in love with him. Poor Pamela, with her high spirit, her clear brain and her strong courage, to be betrayed by a heart as vulnerable as any silly girl’s of the lot! She was clear-sighted enough to know that, stripped of the golden glamour, the path of her romance led to a very ugly gulf. She despised herself for her weakness. She had no illusions on the quality of the attachment offered to her by Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs, but, as the short December days dropped away to Christmas, she found, growing within her, a dangerous new self; a reckless creature who cried: _The Devil might take the consequences; a girl was young but once; you found your fate, and had to clasp him or lose him; the one man you could love, and him only, or go wanting to your grave!_ “I know it’s death and destruction some time,” said Pamela to herself, sitting hugging her knees in the neat little chamber in Shepherd Street, where she lodged with a most respectable widow woman who had once seen better times, “but isn’t it death and destruction anyhow and at once if I have to give him up?” She re-read the letter he had slipped into her hand--the audacious fellow--a few hours ago at Madame Mirabel’s. “_It must be yes or no, my darling lovely girl._” My darling, lovely girl. That was what his eyes were always saying, and oh! it was sweet! It must be yes or no! She told herself that if she couldn’t say yes, it was still more impossible to say no. Backwards and forwards she struggled with the insolvable problem, till her tallow candle expired with a great stench, and she was left in darkness and misery. Worn out with her long day she fell at last asleep, to be wakened by the call of a cock in Shepherd’s Market. Perhaps it was this farmyard cry which, weaving into her consciousness, had made her dream so strongly of the old place at home. When she woke she could hardly believe she was not in the billowing four-poster in the great attic, with pretty Sister Susie asleep beside her. Again the cold, foggy, bleak London morning was rent by the crow of the cock. Then Pamela knew where she was, and she knew something else, too. That other self which had got into her must not be listened to on any account. It must indeed be stamped out of existence with the utmost promptitude. Now Pamela was considerably wiser than most young women in her position. She took a sensible resolution.