"Do? We've arranged all that. They say there is a living to be made at the Bar in New Zealand, if one does not object to riding boots and spurs as part of the professional costume. Of course it will be a different sort of life, and Agnes' favorite patent leathers will be left behind in every sense. This would have been a bad blow to me"--there is a slight catch in his voice, and he gets up, and looks out of one of the windows with his back to her--"now I have learned from you that life should not be all lounging round the table and looking over other people's cards. It has been a sharp lesson, but very opportune as things have turned out. I am ready to take a hand myself now--even without a partner." He does not at once turn round. He had not fancied she would take it like this, and he listens for a word to tell him that at any rate she is sorry--is grieved as for a stranger. Then he feels a sudden light, timid touch upon his arm. Joan is standing quite close to him, and does not move or take away her hand as he turns. Only she looks down at the floor when she speaks: "I think I should be better than--than dummy--if you will take me to New Zealand." Half laughing, half crying, and wholly confused, she looks up into his astonished face with eyes so brimful of love and tenderness that they tell all her story. For just an instant his eyes meet hers. Then, with a smothered exclamation, he draws her to him--and--in fact smothers the exclamation. "I am so glad you've lost your money," she sobs, hiding her face, as soon as she can, upon his shoulder. "I should not have done at all--for you--in London, Charley." There let us leave her. But no, another is less merciful. Neither of them hears the door open or sees Agnes' face appear at it. But she both sees and hears, and says very distinctly and clearly: "Well!" But even Agnes is happy and satisfied. Something _has_ happened. THE FATAL LETTER. I have friends who tell me that they seldom walk the streets of London without wondering what is passing behind the house-fronts; without picturing a comedy here, a love-scene there, and behind the dingy cane blinds a something ill-defined, a something odd and _bizarre_. They experience--if you believe them--a sense of loneliness out in the street, an impatience of the sameness of all these many houses, their dull bricks and discreet windows, and a longing that someone would step out and ask them to enter and see the play. Well, I have never felt any of these things; but as I was passing through Fitzhardinge Square about half-past ten o'clock one evening in last July, after dining, if I remember rightly, in Baker Street, something happened to me which I fancy may be of interest to such people.