"Yours very respectfully,

"M. ARMIGER."

The editor's letter was dated the 6th of the month; the answer, dated the
8th, betrayed the anxious haste of the writer in replying, and it was not
her fault if what she wrote came to Verrian when he was no longer able to
do justice to her confession. Under the address given in her first
letter she now began, in, a hand into which a kindlier eye might have
read a pathetic perturbation:

"DEAR SIR,--I have something awful to tell you. I might write pages
without making you think better of me, and I will let you think the worst
at once. I am not what I pretended to be. I wrote to Mr. Verrian saying
what I did, and asking to see the rest of his story on the impulse of the
moment. I had been reading it, for I think it is perfectly fascinating;
and a friend of mine, another girl, and I got together trying to guess
how he would end it, and we began to dare each other to write to him and
ask. At first we did not dream of doing such a thing, but we went on,
and just for the fun of it we drew lots to see which should write to him.
The lot fell to me; but we composed that letter together, and we put in
about my dying for a joke. We never intended to send it; but then one
thing led to another, and I signed it with my real name and we sent it.
We did not really expect to hear anything from it, for we supposed he
must get lots of letters about his story and never paid any attention to
them. We did not realize what we had done till I got your letter
yesterday. Then we saw it all, and ever since we have been trying to
think what to do, and I do not believe either of us has slept a moment.
We have come to the conclusion that there was only one thing we could do,