"Heaven forbid!" I cried. "It is the one unpardonable sin. Better anything than that." Then I grew practical. "Father's consent?" "MY father's? IS it likely? He expects me to marry into some distinguished English family." I hummed a moment. "Well, out with it!" I exclaimed, pointing my cigar at him. He leaned back in his chair and told me the whole story. A pretty girl; golden hair; introduced to her by a friend; nice, simple little thing; mind and heart above the irregular stage on to which she had been driven by poverty alone; father dead; mother in reduced circumstances. "To keep the home together, poor Sissie decided--" "Precisely so," I murmured, knocking off my ash. "The usual self-sacrifice! Case quite normal! Everything en regle!" "You don't mean to say you doubt it?" he cried, flushing up, and evidently regarding me as a hopeless cynic. "I do assure you, Dr. Cumberledge, the poor child--though miles, of course, below Miss Tepping's level--is as innocent, and as good--" "As a flower in May. Oh, yes; I don't doubt it. How did you come to propose to her, though?" He reddened a little. "Well, it was almost accidental," he said, sheepishly. "I called there one evening, and her mother had a headache and went up to bed. And when we two were left alone, Sissie talked a great deal about her future and how hard her life was. And after a while she broke down and began to cry. And then--" I cut him short with a wave of my hand. "You need say no more," I put in, with a sympathetic face. "We have all been there." We paused a moment, while I puffed smoke at the photograph again. "Well," I said at last, "her face looks to me really simple and nice. It is a good face. Do you see her often?" "Oh, no; she's on tour." "In the provinces?" "M'yes; just at present, at Scarborough." "But she writes to you?" "Every day." "Would you think it an unpardonable impertinence if I made bold to ask whether it would be possible for you to show me a specimen of her