d to one or the other as far as I am
concerned. I never was so happy as when I felt that you
had enticed me back to the hopes of former days.

Now I am yours, as always, and most affectionately,

FRANK HOUSTON.

I shall expect the same word back from you by return of
post scored under as eagerly as those futile "prays."

Imogene when she received this was greatly disturbed,--not knowing
how to carry herself in her great resolve,--or whether indeed that
resolve must not be again abandoned. She had determined, should her
lover's answer be as she had certainly intended it to be when she
wrote her letter, to go at once to her brother and to declare to him
that the danger was at an end, and that he might return to London
without any fear of a relapse on her part. But she could not do so
with such a reply as that she now held in her pocket. If that reply
could, in very truth, be true, then there must be another revulsion,
another change of purpose, another yielding to absolute joy. If it
could be the case that Frank Houston no longer feared the dangers
that he had feared before, if he had in truth reconciled himself to
a state of things which he had once described as simple poverty,
if he really placed his happiness on the continuation of his love,
then,--then, why should she make the sacrifice? Why should she place
such implicit confidence in her brother's infallibility against
error, seeing that by doing so she would certainly shipwreck her own
happiness,--and his too, if his words were to be trusted?

He called upon her to write to him again by return of post. She was
to write to him and unsay those prayers, and comfort him with a
repetition of that dear word which she had declared that she would
never use again with all its true meaning. That was his express order
to her. Should she obey it, or should she not obey it? Should she
vacillate again, or should she leave his last letter unanswered
with stern obduracy? She acknowledged to herself that it was a dear
letter, deserving the best treatment at her hands, giving her lover
credit, probably, for more true honesty than he deserved. What was
the best treatment? Her brother had plainly shown his conviction that
the best treatment would be to leave him without meddling with him
any further. Her sister-in-law, though milder in her language, was,
she feared, of the same opinion. Would it not be better for him not
to be meddled with? Ought not that to