t not
only branded her--it seared the innocent! Poor, poor Yate! What had he
done that a suffering girl should have clung to him to avert mental
death in an ocean of despond, while he had imagined it but a dancing
duet on the waves of love? And she had aided the deception. It had been
to gain time, to kill regret, to help in wrenching the weeds she had
mistaken for flowers from the garden of her life. Well, she had failed,
and the travesty must cease. But before it ceased that which she had
striven to do as a duty to herself she would now do as a duty to Yate.
She chose paper and a pen with deliberation, and wrote very
proportionately and legibly:--

DEAR MR. ROSSER,--Pray do not consider yourself bound to return
as you suggested, and resume our childish relations. Your long
silence has proved you now know your own mind, and I have
already found someone worthy of a woman's esteem and
affection.--Your sincere friend,

CAROL SILVER.

She reserved the posting till night, after the coming of Yate, who was
due at dinner. In the evening the young man arrived. He had fought his
way on foot through a deluge of rain and a thundering blast. The tussle
suited his mood, which had rebelled against the suavity of conveyance to
his enchanting goal. A handsome colour glowed through the tan of his
cheeks, and the sombre green-grey of his eyes shone gallant and golden
with the illuminations of love. At first glimpse of him Carol recognised
in his personality that almost godlike quality which welds mere dust
into heroes. What devotion he was prepared to give her! A crown of
sovereignty to lift the chosen one above princes and peoples, pain and
penury, and privation. But the diadem was too large, too massive; her
poor ignoble head might sink under it. And then princes and peoples
would become but a mob, antagonistic or inane, and the pinch of pain,
privation, and penury would eternally grip at the strings of her
love-famished heart.

She showed him her renouncement of Rosser, and sent it forth to post.
His heart bounded, for her composure deceived him and masked the cost of
the decisive action.

After dinner, Mrs Silver, complaining of the elements outside and the
leaden temperature within, retired to lie down in the adjacent boudoir.
They were alone. On a distant pedestal a lamp, petalled like a poppy,
threw sleepy rays across the room; at the piano some smal