not stand in amicable relations towards
each other. Mrs. Lovegrove was envious
of Mrs. Frost, and. Mrs. Frost was
disdainful of Mrs. Lovegrove.

The two husbands would occasionally
remonstrate, each with the wife of his
bosom, respecting this inconvenient, not
to say reprehensible, state of things; and
would openly, in marital fashion, wonder
why the deuce the women were so spiteful
and so silly!

"I wish, Georgy," Mr. Frost would say,
"that you would behave with decent civility
to Lovegrove's wife when you meet
her. She does not come in your way
often. I think it very selfish that you will
not make the least effort to oblige me, when
I have told you so often how serious an
inconvenience it would be to me to have any
coolness with Lovegrove."

"Why can't you get on with Mrs. Frost,
Sarah?" Mr. Lovegrove would ask,
gravely. "I and Frost never have a
word together; and two more different
men you would scarcely find."

But none the less did a feeling of
animosity smoulder in the breasts of the two
ladies. And perhaps the chief circumstance
that prevented the feeling from breaking
out into a blaze, was the wide distance
which separates Bayswater from Bedford-
square.

At the latter place, Mr. Frost had a little
private room, the last and smallest of a
suite of three, opening one within the other,
which looked on to a smoke-blackened
yard, some five feet square. Mr. Frost had
shut out the view of the opposite wall by
the expedient of having his window frame
filled with panes of coloured glass. This
diminished the already scanty quantity of
daylight that was admitted into the room.
But Mr. Frost neither came to his office
very early, nor remained there very late,
so that his work there was done during
those hours of the day in which, when the
sun shone at all, he sent his beams in
through the red and purple panes of the
window.

It was understood in the office that when
Mr. Frost closed the outer one of the green-
baize double doors which shut in his private
room, he was not to be disturbed save on
the most pressing and important business.
So long as only the inner door remained
closed, Mr. Frost was accessible to six-and-
eightpence-yielding mortals. But when
once the weight which usually kept the
outer door open was removed, and the dark
green portal had swung to, with a swift
noiseless passage of the cords over their
pulleys, then no clerk in the employ of the
firm, scarcely even Mr. Lovegrove himself,
willingly undertook the task of disturbing
the privacy of the senior partner.

And yet one morning, soon after Hugh
Lockwood's return to London, Mrs. Lockwood
walked into the offices at Bedford-
square, and required that Mr. Frost should
be informed of her presence; despite the
fact, carefully pointed out to her notice, that
Mr. Frost's room was shut by the outer
door; and that, consequently, Mr. Frost was
understood to be particularly engaged.

"I feel sure that Mr. Frost would see
me, if you would be good enough to take
in my name," said the little woman, looking
into the face of the clerk who had spoken
to her.

There was something almost irresistible
in the composed certainty of her manner.
Neither were the ladylike neatness of her
dress, and the soft, sweet, refined tone of
her voice, without their influence on the
young man.

"Have you an appointment?" he asked,
hesitating.

"Not precisely an appointment for this
special morning. But I have frequently been
admitted at this hour by Mr. Frost. If
you will kindly take in my name to him, I
am quite willing to assume the responsibility
of disturbing him."

"Well, you see, ma'am, that's just
what you can't do. The responsibility
must be on my shoulders, whether it turns
out that I am doing right or wrong.
However, since you say that Mr. Frost has seen
you at this time, before——. Perhaps you
can give me a card to take in to him."

Mrs. Lockwood took a little note-book
out of her pocket, tore off a blank page,
and wrote on it with the neatest of tiny
pencils, the initials Z. L.

"I have no card," she said, smiling,
"but if you will show Mr. Frost that
paper, I think you will find that he will
admit me."

The clerk disappeared, and returned in
a few moments, begging the lady to step
that way.

The lady did step that way, and the
green-baize door closed silently behind her
short, trim, black figure.

Mr. Frost was seated at a table covered
with papers. On one side, and within reach
of his hand, stood a small cabinet full of
drawers. It was a handsome antique piece
of furniture, of inlaid wood; and would
have seemed more suited to a lady's