The Angel of Terror | Page 3

that rested on the drawing board, spoke eloquently of breed.
"I'd like to see it, miss, if I may," said Mrs. Morgan, wiping her hands
on her apron in anticipation.
Lydia pulled open a drawer of the table and took out a large sheet of
Windsor board. She had completed her pencil sketch and Mrs. Morgan
gasped appreciatively. It was a picture of a masked man holding a
villainous crowd at bay at the point of a pistol.
"That's wonderful, miss," she said in awe. "I suppose those sort of
things happen too?"
The girl laughed as she put the drawing away.
"They happen in stories which I illustrate, Mrs. Morgan," she said dryly.
"The real brigands of life come in the shape of lawyers' clerks with
writs and summonses. It's a relief from those mad fashion plates I draw,
anyway. Do you know, Mrs. Morgan, that the sight of a dressmaker's
shop window makes me positively ill!"
Mrs. Morgan shook her head sympathetically and Lydia changed the
subject.
"Has anybody been this afternoon?" she asked.
"Only the young man from Spadd & Newton," replied the stout woman
with a sigh. "I told 'im you was out, but I'm a bad liar."
The girl groaned.
"I wonder if I shall ever get to the end of those debts," she said in
despair. "I've enough writs in the drawer to paper the house, Mrs.

Morgan."
Three years ago Lydia Beale's father had died and she had lost the best
friend and companion that any girl ever had. She knew he was in debt,
but had no idea how extensively he was involved. A creditor had seen
her the day after the funeral and had made some uncouth reference to
the convenience of a death which had automatically cancelled George
Beale's obligations. It needed only that to spur the girl to an action
which was as foolish as it was generous. She had written to all the
people to whom her father owed money and had assumed full
responsibility for debts amounting to hundreds of pounds.
It was the Celt in her that drove her to shoulder the burden which she
was ill-equipped to carry, but she had never regretted her impetuous
act.
There were a few creditors who, realising what had happened, did not
bother her, and there were others....
She earned a fairly good salary on the staff of the Daily Megaphone,
which made a feature of fashion, but she would have had to have been
the recipient of a cabinet minister's emoluments to have met the
demands which flowed in upon her a month after she had accepted her
father's obligations.
"Are you going out to-night, miss?" asked the woman.
Lydia roused herself from her unpleasant thoughts.
"Yes. I'm making some drawings of the dresses in Curfew's new play.
I'll be home somewhere around twelve."
Mrs. Morgan was half-way across the room when she turned back.
"One of these days you'll get out of all your troubles, miss, you see if
you don't! I'll bet you'll marry a rich young gentleman."
Lydia, sitting on the edge of the table, laughed.

"You'd lose your money, Mrs. Morgan," she said, "rich young
gentlemen only marry poor working girls in the kind of stories I
illustrate. If I marry it will probably be a very poor young gentleman
who will become an incurable invalid and want nursing. And I shall
hate him so much that I can't be happy with him, and pity him so much
that I can't run away from him."
Mrs. Morgan sniffed her disagreement.
"There are things that happen----" she began.
"Not to me--not miracles, anyway," said Lydia, still smiling, "and I
don't know that I want to get married. I've got to pay all these bills first,
and by the time they are settled I'll be a grey-haired old lady in a mob
cap."
Lydia had finished her tea and was standing somewhat scantily attired
in the middle of her bedroom, preparing for her theatre engagement,
when Mrs. Morgan returned.
"I forgot to tell you, miss," she said, "there was a gentleman and a lady
called."
"A gentleman and a lady? Who were they?"
"I don't know, Miss Beale. I was lying down at the time, and the girl
answered the door. I gave her strict orders to say that you were out."
"Did they leave any name?"
"No, miss. They just asked if Miss Beale lived here, and could they see
her."
"H'm!" said Lydia with a frown. "I wonder what we owe them!"
She dismissed the matter from her mind, and thought no more of it until
she stopped on her way to the theatre to learn from the office by
telephone the number of drawings required.

The chief sub-editor answered her.
"And, by the way," he added,