She wrote it there and then. It was very short, only a few lines imploring the recipient to give her all news of Owen, while keeping the secret of the writer's hiding place. Of herself Toni merely stated that she was at work and content; but the few scribbled lines breathed a spirit of misery, of supplication which would surely melt even the hardest heart. Having signed her name, and seen that the address at the top of the sheet was correct, Toni hastily procured an envelope, thrust in the fateful letter, and immediately slipped out of the house to post it. Up to this moment she had acted impulsively, without giving herself time to think, with possibly a lurking fear at the back of her mind that if she stopped to consider she would tear up the letter instead of posting it. But when once it had left her hand, when she had heard the thud it made in falling into the almost empty box, a great terror seized Toni, and she stood trembling in the deserted street, feeling that she would give all she had to rescind her impetuous action. But doubts and misgivings were alike useless now. The letter had passed out of her keeping, and she must abide by her own deed, trusting fervently that no further misfortune would follow her precipitancy. Realizing at last that regrets were futile, Toni turned away and went home, there to spend a sleepless night torturing herself with all sorts of premonitions and visions of ill-luck. But in her wildest flights of imaginative terror over the receipt of her letter, and its consequences, Toni never approached the truth. CHAPTER XXVIII Toni's letter was delivered to Mrs. Herrick late one afternoon; and with a slight feeling of wonder as to her correspondent's identity, Eva broke the seal languidly and took out the thin foreign sheet without the least notion that this letter was to her a veritable messenger of Fate. It did not take her long to read the few scrawled lines in which Toni proffered her desperate request; and when she had read them, Eva let the sheet flutter to the floor while she pondered on the strange chance which led the woman whose life she had helped to ruin to appeal to her for aid.