In a week it was finished. Flushed and panting from her labor, she placed it in his hands, that trembled with eagerness as he received it. He had scarcely dared hope that the embryo authoress had succeeded, yet she had imbued his mind with some of her fiery enthusiasm. “I shall succeed, I vow it!” she declared over and over, stirred with a new sense of power, blent with fierce ambition. When he read what she had written he fairly shouted with joy. She had caught his idea, carried out his conception brilliantly, developing an undreamed-of literary force and talent. He did not know how to thank her enough. The tears overflowed in his eyes as he clasped her beautiful hands, crying out that he would be grateful to her his life long; he would owe her a debt that he could never repay. She had helped him to make his fortune, for he knew his play would have a grand success. Proud, selfish, cruel Lelia, who had never done a kind act in her life before, had an entirely new sensation--the joy of doing good. There was something else, too. She who had pursued nothing else but pleasure all her life had a new aim. Proud of her newly acquired talent, as a miser of his hidden treasure, she vowed she would become an author herself, and win fame and fortune by her versatile pen. She set to work at once, and in her enthusiastic absorption her past became almost like a dream to her mind. The nightmare dreams of her terrible sin came no more. Her days were filled with work, her nights calm and restful. Her soul was on fire with feverish ambition to win fame and fortune. She did not care to leave the sanatorium now; she could work better there. When Richard Hale’s play was received by the public that winter with enthusiasm, she felt herself sure of success. The winter slipped away in enthusiastic work. In May the new play was finished. Richard Hale, still an invalid, was proud to place it in his manager’s hands, proud when it was accepted. There was sadness, but no envy, in his face when he congratulated Lelia. “You will take my place,” he said. “I shall never write again. The doctor has told me so. He sends me abroad to end my days in the golden sunshine of the Riviera. Thanks to you, I have an income from my play that insures me luxury the rest of my days. Ah! were you but free, dearest Lelia, I would ask you to go with me, to make glad these fleeting days of my life!” “But I am bound!” she answered gravely, with a bitter heart-pang, for in all the months no word had come from the husband she loved still with ardent passion. In desperation, she wrote to him. She claimed his forgiveness, his love. She told him of her play, she asked him to be proud of her now, she begged him to return. A reply came promptly to her mother, returning her letter.