the younger, reads half a
dozen languages, and shames me by her knowledge of all sorts of things.
And yet delightfully feminine.

'As they were going to Ostend I thought I might as well follow them,
and we continue to see each other pretty frequently.

'By-the-bye, I shall have to find new quarters if I come back to
London. The engineer, back from Italy after a longer absence than he
anticipated, wants his flat, and of course must have it. But then I may
not come back at all, except to gather my traps. I shall not call on
you, unless I have heard that you don't doubt the assurance I have now
twice given.--Your profligate relative,

E. B.'

'I think,' wrote Mary, 'that we may safely believe him. Such a lie
would be too bad; he is incapable of it. Remember, I have never charged
him with falsehood. I shall write and tell him that I accept his word.
Has it, or has it not, occurred to you to see Mrs. Widdowson herself?
Or, if there are insuperable objections, why not see Miss Madden? We
talk to each other in a sort of cypher, dear Rhoda. Well, I desire
nothing but your good, as I think you know, and you must decide for
yourself where that good lies.'

Everard's letter put Rhoda beside herself with wrath. In writing it he
knew it would come into her hands; he hoped to sting her with jealousy.
So Mrs. Widdowson had done him a service. He was free to devote himself
to Agnes Brissenden, with her six languages, her extreme liberality,
her feminine charm.

If she could not crush out her love for this man she would poison
herself--as she had so often decided she would do if ever some hopeless
malady, such as cancer, took hold upon her--

And be content to feed his vanity? To give him the lifelong reflection
that, for love of him, a woman excelled by few in qualities of brain
and heart had died like a rat?

She walked about the rooms, here and there, upstairs and downstairs, in
a fever of unrest. After all, was he not behaving in the very way she
ought to desire? Was he not helping her to hate him? He struck at her
with unmanly blows, thinking, no doubt, to quell her pride, and bring
her to him in prostrate humility. Never! Even if it were proved in the
clearest way that she ought to have believed him she would make no
submission. If he loved her he must woo once more.

But the suggestion in Mary's letter was not fruitless. When she had
thought over it for a day or two she wrote to Virginia Madden, asking
her as a favour