He read the letter over carefully; he sat down and read it again; then he put it before him on the table.  He was evidently puzzled by it.  “What does this man mean by writing these letters to me?”—­so Mr. Roscorla, who was a cautious and reflective person, communed with himself.—­“He is no particular friend of mine.  He must be driving at something.  Now he says that I am to be of good cheer.  I must not think anything of what he formerly wrote.  Mr. Trelyon is leaving Eglosilyan for good, and his mother will at last have some peace of mind.  What a pity it is that this sensitive creature should be at the mercy of the rude passions of this son of hers! that she should have no protector! that she should be allowed to mope herself to death in a melancholy seclusion!”

An odd fancy occurred to Mr. Roscorla at this moment, and he smiled:  “I think I have got a clew to Mr. Barnes’s disinterested anxiety about my affairs.  The widower would like to protect the solitary and unfriended widow, but the young man is in the way.  The young man would be very much in the way if he married Wenna Rosewarne; the widower’s fears drive him into suspicion, then into certainty; nothing will do but that I should return to England at once and spoil this little arrangement.  But as soon as Harry Trelyon declares his intention of leaving Eglosilyan for good, then my affairs may go anyhow.  Mr. Barnes finds the coast clear:  I am bidden to stay where I am.  Well, that is what I mean to do; but now I fancy I understand Mr. Barnes’s generous friendship for me and his affectionate correspondence.”

He turned to Wenna’s letter with much compunction.  He owed her some atonement for having listened to the disingenuous reports of this scheming clergyman.  How could he have so far forgotten the firm, uncompromising rectitude of the girl’s character, her sensitive notions of honor, the promises she had given?

He read her letter, and as he read his eyes seemed to grow hot with rage.  He paid no heed to the passionate contrition of the trembling lines—­to the obvious pain that she had endured in telling the story, without concealment, against herself—­to the utter and abject wretchedness with which she awaited his decision.  It was thus that she had kept faith with him the moment his back was turned!  Such were the safeguards afforded by a woman’s sense of honor!  What a fool he had been, to imagine that any woman could remain true to her promise so soon as some other object of flirtation and incipient love-making came in her way!

He looked at the letter again:  he could scarcely believe it to be in her handwriting.  This the quiet, reasonable, gentle and timid Wenna Rosewarne, whose virtues were almost a trifle too severe?  The despair and remorse of the letter did not touch him—­he was too angry and indignant over the insult to himself—­but it astonished him.  The passionate emotion of those closely-written pages he could scarcely connect with the shy, frank, kindly little girl he remembered:  it was a cry of agony from a tortured woman, and he knew at least that for her the old quiet time was over.