ve my letter to-morrow."

"On one condition? What?"

"I said to him that he gave me Blent because I was there, because he saw
me there in the middle of it all. That's true. If I'd stayed here, would
he ever have told his secret? Never! He wouldn't so much as have come to
see me; he'd never have thought of me, he'd have forgotten all about me.
It was seeing me there."

"Well, seeing you, anyhow."

"Seeing me there--there at Blent," she insisted, now almost angrily. "So
he'll understand what I mean by the thing I've asked of him. And he must
obey." Her voice became imperious. "I've told him that I'm going back,
going to stay there, and live there, but that he must never, never come
there."

Mina started, her eyes wide-open in surprise at this heroic measure.

"I must never see him--if I can help it. Anyhow I must never see him at
Blent. That's the only way I can endure it."

"Never see him! Never have him at Blent!" Mina was trying to sort out
the state of things which would result. It was pretty plain what had
happened; Cecily had felt the need of doing something; here it was.
Mina's sympathies, quick to move, darted out to Harry. "Think what it'll
mean to him never to see Blent!" she cried.

"To him? Nothing, nothing! Why, you yourself came home just now saying
that we were nothing to him! Blent's nothing to him now. It's for my own
sake that I've said he mustn't come."

"You've begged him not to come?"

"I've told him not to come," said Cecily haughtily. "If it's his, let
him take it. If it's mine, I can choose who shall come there. Don't you
see, don't you see? How can I ever cheat myself into thinking it's mine
by right, if I see Harry there?" She paused a moment. "And if you'd
thrown yourself at a man's head, and he'd refused you, would you want to
have him about?"

"N--no," said Mina, but rather hesitatingly; uncomfortable situations
are to some natures better than no situations at all. "No, of course
not," she added more confidently, after she had spent a moment in
bracing up her sense of what was seemly.

"So I've ended it, I've ended everything. I posted my letter just before
you came in, and he'll get it to-morrow. And now, Mina, I'm going back
to Blent." She threw herself into an arm-chair, leaning back in a
sudden weariness after the excited emotion with which she had declared
her resolve. Mina sat on the other side of the table looking at her, and
after a moment's looking suddenly began to sob