was doubtful if she would have uttered it. Lavinia Fenton, the soul of
sweetness and amiability, could show resolute fight when roused. Miss
Armitage turned away with a disdainful toss of her head.

The others knew this too, for they ceased to irritate Lavinia and
continued their talk among themselves. All the same, the principal
topic was Lavinia Fenton. She was so strangely unlike herself to-night.

Half an hour later the room was in silence save for the whispering
between the occupants of those beds sufficiently close to each other to
permit this luxury. When the neighbouring clock of St. George's,
Bloomsbury, chimed half-past nine even these subdued sounds had ceased.

At half-past ten the moon was at the full. The pale light streamed
through the small window panes and threw the shadows of the broad
framework lattice-wise on Lavinia's bed which was next the window. In
daylight she had but to lie on her right side and she could see across
the fields and the rising ground each side of the Fleet river to the
villages of Islington and Hornsey.

Gradually the latticed shadow crept upwards. It at last reached
Lavinia's face. She was not asleep. Her eyes very wide open were staring
at the ceiling with a vague, wistful expression. She gave a long sigh,
her body twisted, and leaning on her right elbow, her left hand
insinuated itself beneath the pillow and drew forth a letter which she
held in the moonlight and read. Her forehead puckered as though she were
in doubt. Her steadfast eyes seemed to contradict the smile curving her
upper lip. The paper slipped from her limp fingers and she pondered, her
colour deepening the while. Nothing short of a love letter could have
caused that delightful blush. What she read was this:--