“But you must not write a line in answer, not even to give me your assurance.  That must come when we shall meet at length,—­say after a dozen years or so.  I shall tell mamma of this letter, which circumstances seem to demand, and shall assure her that you will write no answer to it.

“Oh, Harry, you will understand all that I might say of my feelings in regard to you.

“Your own, Florence.”

This letter, when she had written it and copied it fair and posted the copy in the pillar-box close by, she found that she could not in any way show absolutely to her mother.  In spite of all her efforts it had become a love-letter.  And what genuine love-letter can a girl show even to her mother?  But she at once told her of what she had done.  “Mamma, I have written a letter to Harry Annesley.”

“You have?”

“Yes, mamma; I have thought it right to tell him what you had heard about that night.”

“And you have done this without my permission,—­without even telling me what you were going to do?”

“If I had asked you, you would have told me not.”

“Of course I should have told you not.  Good gracious! has it come to this, that you correspond with a young gentleman without my leave, and when you know that I would not have given it?”

“Mamma, in this instance it was necessary.”

“Who was to judge of that?”

“If he is to be my husband—­”

“But he is not to be your husband.  You are never to speak to him again.  You shall never be allowed to meet him; you shall be taken abroad, and there you shall remain, and he shall hear nothing about you.  If he attempts to correspond with you—­”

“He will not.”

“How do you know?”

“I have told him not to write.”

“Told him, indeed!  Much he will mind such telling!  I shall give your Uncle Magnus a full account of it all and ask for his advice.  He is a man in a high position, and perhaps you may think fit to obey him, although you utterly refuse to be guided in any way by your mother.”  Then the conversation for the moment came to an end.  But Florence, as she left her mother, assured herself that she could not promise any close obedience in any such matters to Sir Magnus.

CHAPTER XIV.

They arrive in Brussels.

For some weeks after the party at Mrs. Armitage’s house, and the subsequent explanations with her mother, Florence was made to suffer many things.  First came the one week before they started, which was perhaps the worst of all.  This was specially embittered by the fact that Mrs. Mountjoy absolutely refused to divulge her plans as they were made.  There was still a fortnight before she could be received at Brussels, and as to that fortnight she would tell nothing.