Her eyes were turned towards him, but with no fixity of expression, she was bound to listen and to look, but her interest was gone. ‘“Why do you not send me a copy of the play?”’ he rapidly read. “One would think it was you only who had any stake in it;“ and so on, and so on. I suppose you have no wish to pry further into our little secret?’ he added, folding up the letter at the same time. ‘I did not wish to pry into it at all, Willie,’ she answered sorrowfully; ‘I again repeat I am sorry to have mistrusted you.’ ‘Well, well, let us say no more about it. Let us forgive and forget.’ ‘It is you who have to forgive, Willie, not I.’ ‘I don’t say that,’ he answered gravely; ‘but if you think so, keep your forgiveness, Maggie, for next time. Be sure I shall have need of it.’ Here the voice of Mr. Erin was heard calling for Margaret. ‘Why do you not bring me the play?’ William Henry held up his finger in sign that she should not reveal his presence in the house to Mr. Erin, and taking the manuscript from a cupboard placed it in her hand. ‘Take it him,’ he whispered, with a tender kiss. She kissed him again without a word; the tears stood in her eyes, as, the very image of penitence and self-reproach, she made her mute adieu. It was certainly an occasion on which some men, not unconscious of errors, might have congratulated themselves. The expression on William Henry’s face, however, was very far from one of triumph; it was white and worn and weary. ‘Another such a victory,’ he murmured with a haggard smile, ‘and I shall be undone.’ He locked the door and threw himself into a chair with an exhausted air, like an actor who, having played his part successfully, is conscious of having done so with great effort, and also that he owed more to good luck than to good guidance. ‘Great heaven!’ he muttered, ‘what an escape! Suppose she had found the key for herself and read the letter, or even if she had compelled me to do so. She must have heard it all. I could not have invented a syllable to save my life——. What a millstone is this fellow about my neck,’ he presently continued, as he tore the letter along and across, and threw the fragments under his feet. ‘A copy of the play! No, that he shall never see till the time is past for harm to come of it. A few days more, and all will be safe. I will be pestered no longer with his cursed importunities.’ Then he took the perforated cardboard and tore that likewise into small pieces. ‘Now I have burnt my boats with a vengeance,’ he added grimly. Then he rose and paced up and down the room, first rapidly, then slower and slower.