It seemed no problem at all to me, but I gave it an instant's reflection. "I think you know," I told him.
He nodded. "I think I do," he agreed. "Just the same," he rose and started for his desk, "don't you imagine there isn't a problem in the situation. There's a big one."
He turned back, struck by a sudden idea. "Why don't you make a magazine story of it?" he added. "I believe you can write fiction. Here's your chance. Describe the confession of the murderess, the mental struggle of the reporter, her suppression of the news, and its after-effect on her career."
His suggestion hit me much harder than his problem. The latter was certainly strong enough for purposes of fiction.
"Why," I said, slowly, "thank you. I believe I will."
Before Mr. Morris had closed the door I was drawing a fresh supply of copy-paper toward me; before he had left the building I had written the introduction to my first fiction story; and before the roar of the presses came up to my ears from the basement, at a quarter to two in the morning, I had made on my last page the final cross of the press-writer and dropped the finished manuscript into a drawer of my desk. It had been written with surprising ease. Helen Brandow had entered my tale as naturally as she would enter a room; and against the bleak background of her cell I seemed to see her whole life pass before me like a series of moving-pictures which my pen raced after and described.
The next morning found me severely critical as I read my story. Still, I decided to send it to a famous novelist I had met a few months before, who had since then spent some of her leisure in good-naturedly urging me to "write." I believed she would tell me frankly what she thought of this first sprout in my literary garden, and that night, quite without compunction, I sent it to her. Two days later I received a letter which I carried around in my pocket until the precious bit of paper was almost in rags.
"Your story is a corker," wrote the distinguished author, whose epistolary style was rather free. "I experienced a real thrill when the woman confessed. You have made out a splendid case for her; also for your reporter. Given all your premises, things had to happen as they did. Offer the story to Mrs. Langster, editor of The Woman's Friend. Few editors have sense, but I think she'll know enough to take it. I inclose a note to her."
If Mrs. Appleton had experienced a thrill over my heroine's confession we were more than quits, for I experienced a dozen thrills over her letter, and long afterward, when she came back from a visit to England with new honors thick upon her, I amused her by describing them. Within twenty-four hours after receiving her inspiring communication I had wound my way up a circular staircase that made me feel like an animated corkscrew, and was humbly awaiting Mrs. Langster's pleasure in the room next to her dingy private office. She had read Mrs. Appleton's note at once, and had sent an office boy to say that she would receive me in a few minutes. I gladly waited thirty, for this home of a big and successful magazine was a new world to me—and, though it lacked the academic calm I had associated with the haunts of literature in the making, everything in it was interesting, from the ink-spattered desks and their aloof and busy workers to the recurrent roar of the elevated trains that pounded past the windows.
Mrs. Langster proved to be an old lady, with a smile of extraordinary sweetness. Looking at her white hair, and meeting the misty glance of her near-sighted blue eyes, I felt a depressing doubt of Mrs. Appleton's wisdom in sending me to her with a work of fiction which turned on murder. One instinctively associated Mrs. Langster with organ recitals, evening service, and afternoon teas in dimly lighted rooms. But there was an admirable brain under her silver hair, and I had swift proof of the keenness of her literary discrimination; for within a week she accepted my story and sent me a check for an amount equal to the salary I received for a month of work. Her letter, and that of Mrs. Appleton, went to Sister Irmingarde—was it only a year ago that I had parted from her and the convent? Then I framed them side by side and hung them in a place of honor on my study wall, as a solace in dark hours and an inspiration in brighter ones. They represented a literary ladder, on the first rung of which I was sure I had found firm footing, though the upper rungs were lost in clouds.