th an effort, she succeeded in holding
out her hand Mallard held it lightly for an instant.

"I will write to him," fell from her lips, when already he had turned
to the door. "If necessary, I will go and see him."

"Thank you," he replied with civility, and left her.

CHAPTER XIV

ON THE WINGS OF THE MORNING

"I cannot answer your long letter; to such correspondence there is no
end. Come and spend a day here with us; I promise to listen patiently,
and you shall hear how things are beginning to shape themselves in my
mind, now I have had leisure to reflect. Cecily sends a line. Do come.
Take the early boat on Monday; Spence will give you all particulars,
and see you off at Santa Lucia. We really have some very sober plans,
not unapproved by Mrs. Lessingham. Will meet you at the Marina."

Miriam received this on Sunday morning, and went to her own room to
read it. The few lines of Cecily's writing which were enclosed, she
glanced over with careless eye; yet not with mere carelessness either,
but as if something of aversion disinclined her to peruse them
attentively. That sheet she at once laid aside; Reuben's note she still
held in her hand, and kept re-reading it.

She went to the window and looked over towards Capri. A slight mist
softened its outlines this morning; it seemed very far away, on the dim
borders of sea and sky. For a long time she had felt the luring charm
of that island, always before her eyes, yet never more than a blue
mountainous shape. Lately she had been reading of it, and her fancy,
new to such picturings, was possessed by the mysterious dread of its
history in old time, the grandeur of its cliffs, the loveliness of its
green hollows, and the wonder of its sea-caves. Her childhood had known
nothing of fairyland, and now, in this tardy awakening of the
imaginative part of her nature, she thought sometimes of Capri much as
a child is wont to think of the enchanted countries, nameless,
regionless, in books of fable.

What thoughts for Sunday! But Miriam was far on the way of those who
recognize themselves as overmastered by temptation, and grow almost
reckless in the sins they cannot resist. So long it was since she had
been able to attend the accustomed public worship, and now its
substitute in the privacy of her room had become irksome. She blushed
to be practising hypocrisy; the Spences were careful to refrain from
interfering with her to-day, and here, withdrawn from their sight,