o you this evening, I must answer now--as I should
have answered then--truthfully and unhesitatingly, no.

"This, I insist, must be the last word between us upon this unfortunate
subject, if we are to continue, as I hope, very good friends.

"Cordially yours,

"LAURA DEARBORN."

She sealed, stamped, and directed the three envelopes, and glanced at
the little leather-cased travelling clock that stood on the top of her
desk. It was nearly two.

"I could not sleep, I could not sleep," she murmured, "if I did not
know they were on the way."

In answer to the bell Henry appeared, and Laura gave him the letters,
with orders to mail them at once in the nearest box.

When it was all over she sat down again at her desk, and leaning an
elbow upon it, covered her eyes with her hand for a long moment. She
felt suddenly very tired, and when at last she lowered her hand, her
fingers were wet. But in the end she grew calmer. She felt that, at all
events, she had vindicated herself, that her life would begin again
to-morrow with a clean page; and when at length she fell asleep, it was
to the dreamless unconsciousness of an almost tranquil mind.

She slept late the next morning and breakfasted in bed between ten and
eleven. Then, as the last vibrations of last night's commotion died
away, a very natural curiosity began to assert itself. She wondered how
each of the three men "would take it." In spite of herself she could
not keep from wishing that she could be by when they read their
dismissals.

Towards the early part of the afternoon, while Laura was in the library
reading "Queen's Gardens," the special delivery brought Landry Court's
reply. It was one roulade of incoherence, even in places blistered with
tears. Landry protested, implored, debased himself to the very dust.
His letter bristled with exclamation points, and ended with a prolonged
wail of distress and despair.

Quietly, and with a certain merciless sense of pacification, Laura
deliberately reduced the letter to strips, burned it upon the hearth,
and went back to her Ruskin.

A little later, the afternoon being fine, she determined to ride out to
Lincoln Park, not fifteen minutes from her home, to take a little walk
there, and to see how many new buds were out.

As she was leaving, Annie gave into her hands a pasteboard box, just
brought to the house by a messenger boy.

The box was full of Jacqueminot roses, to the stems of which a note
from Corthell was