ies great drops of tears on the blotting-book. In a straggling hand
she addresses an envelope to Mrs. Mounteagle, placing therein that
unlucky letter from Madame Faustine.

In as few words as possible she relates the scene on paper to her
friend.

"I am disheartened, dispirited, diseverythinged," she writes in
conclusion. "As Dick in 'The Light that Failed' says; 'I am down and
done for--broken--let me alone!'"

"Poor little wretch!" thinks Giddy, reading the sorrowful epistle. "I
must tell Carol. He shall see this forlorn-looking scrawl." She sighs
at the thought of some people's folly. "No sooner met, but they
looked," she quotes to herself, _apropos_ of Eleanor and Mr. Quinton.
"No sooner looked, but they loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed.
Ah! me, it's natural, very plain!"

* * * * *

Eleanor is not going out this afternoon, though the air is mild, the
sun shines, and all the world smiles.

She has more than one call to return, which should have been done
to-day, yet she sits alone in her pretty boudoir, neither reading,
working, nor writing.

Her expression renders her face even more beautiful than usual in the
subdued light. For a ray of winter sunshine, heralding the spring, has
quite dazzled Eleanor's eyes, till she draws the blind, and settles in
a cosy corner at the side of the fender.

In her hand is a letter, brief, yet to its owner teeming with news, so
significant the simple wording seems:

"Why this silence? Stay at home to-day. I _must_ see you."

It is neither commenced nor signed, but written in Carol Quinton's
familiar hand.

Surely there is something imperative about that "Stay at home to-day."
No "please," or "will you?" Merely the bare command. True the _must_
is underlined, and the question savours of anxiety as to her reticence
in writing or meeting him again.

"Well, he shall come, since this is to be the end."

Better face the matter out; it is dangerous dodging poisoned arrows.
She will try how her shield works, that is to glance them aside.

Determination is in her heart, and courage in her eye. Eleanor is
worked up into a fever of virtuous indignation at the remembrance of
all she has allowed Quinton to do and say in the past. This is to be
the turning point in her life. She will be loyal to her husband, and
her first pure love, she will show him that she is capable of
sacrifice, a woman to be trusted, looked up to, reverenced