s at the core of so
much strength, drew from her an outrush of maternal protectiveness that
rolled its flood above personal grief. If she could have sent Isabel to
him, then, an Isabel worthy of the high trust and pathetic dignity in
humility of that letter, she could have accepted her own sorrow. But she
knew Isabel Rose, knew the vanity of that hope even as she tried to
realize it.

"You know what Mr. Gerard wishes to say to you, to-morrow?" she asked
composedly. If the composure was overdone, it was the error of a novice
in acting.

The other girl shrank back.

"Yes--I----"

"Then, why do you not answer him? Surely, if you expected him to write
this, you must answer him."

"I will not!" Isabel cried loudly and rebelliously. "I will not go, I
will not see him hurt like that and hear him, hear him----" she broke
off, fighting for breath. "Tell him to go away. I can't help it now, I
can't see him. It's all over!"

This was the woman Allan Gerard had chosen, Flavia thought in bitter
wonder; this self-centred, hysterical girl whose love could not survive
the marring of her lover's outward beauty. Isabel could not bear to go
to him; the irony of it sank deep into the girl who could scarcely bear
to stay away. But Flavia turned to the mute Rupert, holding her dignity
steadily above her pitiful confusion of mind, striving, also, to ease
this blow to Gerard, who was so little fit to receive it.

"Pray inform Mr. Gerard that Miss Rose is unwell and hardly able to
answer his letter now," she directed. "I hope she will be able to
accompany Mr. Corwin Rose, to-morrow morning, as he suggests."

"No!" Isabel denied.

"I'll report, Miss Rose," Rupert asserted with brevity.

The keen black eyes and the deep-blue ones met, and read each other.
Flavia took a step forward and held out her hand.

"It is not probable that we shall meet again, ever. Thank you," she
said.

It would not have been possible to bribe Rupert into silence, but Flavia
had done better. She knew, and the mechanician knew, as he touched her
soft fingers, that he would keep to himself the knowledge that she had
elevated to a confidence--the knowledge that she loved Allan Gerard, and
was not loved in return.

So it happened that when Rupert returned to the Westbury farmhouse, he
literally repeated Flavia's dictated message and contributed nothing of
additional information or detail--except that he made one dry comment
before retiring for the night.