"Then any one can buy them?" Helen asked eagerly. "They are for
sale to the public--to any one?"


The young woman made note of the customer's eagerness, but
with an unmoved countenance.

"Yes, miss, they are for sale. The ring is four pounds and the
watch twenty-five."

"Twenty-nine pounds!" Helen gasped.

That was more money than she had in the world, but the fact did
not distress her, for she had a true artistic disregard for ready
money, and the absence of it had never disturbed her. But now it
assumed a sudden and alarming value. She had ten pounds in her
purse and ten pounds at her studio--these were just enough to pay
for a quarter's rent and the rates, and there was a hat and cloak
in Bond Street which she certainly must have. Her only assets
consisted of the possibility that some one might soon order a
miniature, and to her mind that was sufficient. Some one always
had ordered a miniature, and there was no reasonable doubt but
that some one would do it again. For a moment she questioned if
it would not be sufficient if she bought the ring and allowed the
watch to remain. But she recognized that the ring meant more to
her than the watch, while the latter, as an old heirloom which
had been passed down to him from a great-grandfather, meant
more to Philip. It was for Philip she was doing this, she
reminded herself. She stood holding his possessions, one in each