'Here's a letter from Jedwood, Edwin!'

'It came just after you went out, and it has been all I could do to resist the temptation to open it.'

'Why shouldn't you have opened it?' said her husband, carelessly.

He tried to do so himself, but his shaking hand thwarted him at first. Succeeding at length, he found a letter in the publisher's own writing, and the first word that caught his attention was 'regret.' With an angry effort to command himself he ran through the communication, then held it out to Amy.

She read, and her countenance fell. Mr Jedwood regretted that the story offered to him did not seem likely to please that particular public to whom his series of one-volume novels made appeal. He hoped it would be understood that, in declining, he by no means expressed an adverse judgment on the story itself &c.

'It doesn't surprise me,' said Reardon. 'I believe he is quite right. The thing is too empty to please the better kind of readers, yet not vulgar enough to please the worse.'

They sat opposite each other, and kept silence. Jedwood's letter slipped from Amy's lap to the ground.

'So,' said Reardon, presently, 'I don't see how our plan is to be carried out.'