"I'm seriously thinking of cutting it all----" ("She won't like that!"--he smiled as he wrote) "and trying again in a new land--Australia--perhaps, or Canada. This country is played out--the competition too strong--and, unless I can see my way clear to raising----" he paused--"a hundred pounds ... (I daren't ask more at the start, and this would prove a useful sop...) I'm afraid I shall have to throw up my work and, what is more painful still--to say good-bye to my few real friends and start afresh overseas. "I've written and written to my father!--but he simply ignores my prayer for help. If only my mother were alive how different life would be for me!" He smiled sourly over the phrase. For Mrs. Somerfield's early death had been accelerated by drink--one of the many crushing blows his hard-working father had survived. "I know," he started to write again, "you will treat this letter as _strictly private_. I am bound to come in for a good round sum when my father dies, and with help _now_ I could guarantee to return the loan--with the usual interest, of course. "I feel I have not the slightest excuse for turning to you in my need--but I can't bear to think of parting with the one true friend life has brought me. "You have been _more_ than ... a sister to me (I can't say 'Mother'--it's too absurd), and, if ever a man were grateful for it, that man is "Your ... broken, "STEPHEN." He read it through thoughtfully, smiling a little at the finale. "'Broke' would be better!--but, on the whole, I think it's a pretty useful epistle." He fastened and sealed it carefully, then glanced at the clock and rang the bell. "It ought to catch Mrs. Uniacke before Jill gets back from college." An untidy maid answered the summons, thrusting her head round the door, with a soiled collar, elaborate hair and a certain pretty anaemic fairness. "Well--what now, Mr. Stephen?" "Come here, Letty." He beckoned to her. "Would you like to do something for me?" He smiled, laying a hand on her arm. The girl coloured at his touch. "You're always wantin' somethin'," she said. "And get it sometimes--eh, Letty? There--don't be cross! Give us a kiss..." But she drew herself away from him with a toss of her averted head. "I'm not that sort--I've told you so." Her voice was sullen, her face strained. "You've no call to talk like that--I'd lose my place if the Missus knew--it ain't fair..." She wavered suddenly under the sentimental eyes. "Well--I'll do it. A letter, I s'pose? To that 'ouse in the Terrace where you go night after night to meet yer ... 'Jill'!" She brought the name out with a snap. "Wrong this time----" he still smiled, looking up at the moody face, faintly coloured under its curls of puffed-out, ashen hair. "Jill is no friend of mine, my dear. She hates me--and it's mutual! This is a letter to her mother--business for the Woman's Cause." The girl brightened visibly.