hree weeks' time and could not return for five years. If I still
cared anything for him, would I meet him in Halifax, marry him, and go
to South Africa with him? If I would not, he would understand that I
had ceased to love him and that all was over between us.

That, boiled down, was the gist of Mark's letter. When I had read it I
cast myself on the bed and wept out all the tears I had refused to let
myself shed during my weeks of exile.

For I could not do what Mark asked--I _could not_. I couldn't run away
to be married in that desolate, unbefriended fashion. It would be a
disgrace. I would feel ashamed of it all my life and be unhappy over
it. I thought that Mark was rather unreasonable. He knew what my
feelings about run-away marriages were. And was it absolutely
necessary for him to go to South Africa? Of course his father was
behind it somewhere, but surely he could have got out of it if he had
really tried.

Well, if he went to South Africa he must go alone. But my heart would
break.

I cried the whole afternoon, cowering among my pillows. I never wanted
to go out of that room again. I never wanted to see anybody again. I
hated the thought of facing Aunt Philippa with her cold eyes and her
miserable stories that seemed to strip life of all beauty and love of
all reality. I could hear her scornful, "That's the men for you," if
she heard what was in Mark's letter.

"What is the matter, Ursula?"

Aunt Philippa was standing by my bed. I was too abject to resent her
coming in without knocking.

"Nothing," I said spiritlessly.

"If you've been crying for three mortal hours over nothing you want a
good spanking and you'll get it," observed Aunt Philippa placidly,
sitting down on my trunk. "Get right up off that bed this minute and
tell me what the trouble is. I'm bound to know, for I'm in your
father's place at present."

"There, then!" I flung her Mark's letter. There wasn't anything in it
that it was sacrilege to let another person see. That was one reason
why I had been crying.

Aunt Philippa read it over twice. Then she folded it up deliberately
and put it back in the envelope.

"What are you going to do?" she asked in a matter-of-fact tone.

"I'm not going to run away to be married," I answered sullenly.

"Well, no, I wouldn't advise you to," said Aunt Philippa reflectively.
"It's a kind of low-down thing to do, though there's been a terrible
lot of romantic nonsense talked and writ about eloping.