“The managing-director was kind to me,” Laura continued with more confidence. “At least, I imagined it was kindness. He made me his own private secretary. I was with him most of the day. Of course, you can see what happened. I imagined that I had fallen in love with him.” “Well, well!” said Mr. Priestley in toleration of this maidenly madness. “He took advantage of my innocence,” Laura went on with pathos. “I mean,” she corrected herself somewhat hastily, “he made advances to which I responded; and we used to write to each other.” That this would hardly be necessary if they saw each ether every day and nearly all day long occurred to the authoress with some force. She hurriedly skated ever this awkward passage. “Nothing _wrong_, you know,” she said very earnestly. “Just—well, just silly. Oh, you do understand, don’t you?” “Yes, yes, I understand, of course,” said Mr. Priestley, who didn’t. “Then I saw the mistake I had made. I tried to get my letters back from him. He refused to let me have them. He tried to hold them over my head, to force me to accept his caresses.” I must try writing for the magazines myself, thought Laura, warming to her work; it seems to come naturally. “If I refused, he threatened to dismiss me and said that he would use the letters to prevent me from getting another post anywhere else. I did refuse, and he did dismiss me. Alas,” said Laura, bravely brushing away an imaginary tear, “it was only too true. Whenever I succeeded in finding another post, I got a letter within a day or two to say that a mistake had been made and my services would not be required. Wherever I went, that scoundrel had my footsteps dogged.” Laura paused again. “He was determined,” she added in a tense whisper, “to break me to his will.” “The villain!” ejaculated Mr. Priestley, moist with emotion. “So you can imagine that I was desperate to get my letters back. Already I had come to the end of my slender resources. I owed my landlady, who seized all my belongings for her rent and turned me out into the street. I was homeless, without a roof to shelter me, a rag to my back, or a penny in my purse.” “But—but what about that car of yours,” stammered Mr. Priestley, whose eyes were nearly starting out of his head. “Oh!” said Laura, who had been far too carried away by her sense of drama to remember such unimportant items as speedy two-seater cars. “The car, yes. The car,” she went on, pulling herself together, “belongs to the man himself.” “The deuce it does!” commented Mr. Priestley. “Yes,” said Laura with more confidence. “He used to lend it to me in the old days. They know me quite well at that garage where he keeps it; so of course I had no difficulty in getting it last night. You see, it was only on the spur of the moment that I spoke to you at all.” “Good gracious!” said Mr. Priestley, who appeared to be conversing chiefly in exclamations.