His eye was attracted to a chemist’s window, and entering the shop hastily, he purchased a bottle of smelling salts.  The act reminded him of Mrs. Mitchell, and that he had not heard from her for several months.  He resolved to write that night, and permitted his mind to wander to the green Island which was almost lost among his memories.  The respite was brief, however.

To his relief he found Mrs. Croix in her intellectual habit.  The lady, who was reading in the door of her boudoir above the garden steps, exclaimed, without formal greeting:—­

“I am transported, sir.  Such descriptions never were written before.  Listen!”

Hamilton, who hated descriptions of scenery at any time, and was in his most direct and imperative temper, stood the infliction but a moment, then asked her attention.  She closed the book over her finger and smiled charmingly.

“Forgive me for boring you,” she said graciously.  “But you know my passion for letters; and if truth must be told, I am a little piqued.  I have not laid eyes on you for a fortnight.  Not but that I am used to your lapses of memory by this time,” she added, with a sigh.

Hamilton went straight to the point.  He told her the exact reason for the necessary breach, omitting nothing but the episode of Mrs. Reynolds; one cause of reproach was as much as a man could be expected to furnish an angry woman.

For Mrs. Croix was very angry.  At first she had pressed her hand against her heart as if about to faint, and Hamilton had hastily extracted the salts; but the next moment she was on her feet, towering and expanding like an avenging queen about to order in her slaves with scimitars and chargers.

“Do you mean,” she cried, “that I am flouted, flung aside like an old cravat?  I?  With half the men in America in love with me?  Good God, sir!  I have known from the beginning that you would tire, but I thought to be on the watch and save my pride.  How dare you come like this?  Why could you not give me warning?  It is an outrage.  I would rather you had killed me.”

“I am sorry I have blundered,” said Hamilton, humbly.  “But how in Heaven’s name can a man know how a woman will take anything?  I had such respect for your great intelligence that I thought it due you to treat you as I would a man—­”

“A man?” exclaimed Mrs. Croix.  “Treat me like a man!  Of all the supremely silly things I ever heard one of your sex say, that is the silliest.  I am not a man, and you know it.”

Hamilton hastened to assure her that she was deliberately averting her intelligence from his true meaning.  “You have never doubted my sincerity for a moment,” he added.  “You surely know what it will cost me never to see you again.  There is but one cause under heaven that could have brought me to you with this decision.  You may believe in my regret—­to use a plain word—­when you reflect upon all that you have been to me.”