With a gesture of inexpressible disgust, regretted the next moment, as I reflected that, to bring me this letter, he might be overstepping common rules, I raised the envelope to the light and recognized, to my intense disappointment, the well-known characters of Bainrothe’s—­small, rigid, neat, constrained.

My heart, which a moment before had beat audibly to my own ear, sank like a stone in my breast, and I sat for a time holding the letter mutely, uncertain how to proceed.  Should I return it unread, and thus hurl the gauntlet in the traitor’s face, or be governed by expedience (word ever so despised by me of old), and trace the venom of the viper, by his trail, back to his native den?

After a brief conflict of feeling, I determined on the wiser course—­that of self-humiliation as a measure of profound policy.

I broke the seal, the well-known “dove-and-vulture” effigy which he called in heraldry “The quarry” and claimed as his rightful crest.  Very significantly, indeed, did it strike me now, though I had jested on the subject so merrily of old with Evelyn and George Gaston.

The letter was of very recent date, and ran as follows—­I have the original still, and this is an exact copy: 

“On September 1st, or as soon thereafter as feasible, I shall call to see you, Miriam, in your retirement, which I am glad to hear has so far been beneficial.  Should I find you in a condition to make conditions, I shall lay before you a very advantageous offer of marriage I had received for you before your shipwreck.  Should you accept this offer, and attach your signature to a few papers that I shall bring with me (papers important to the respectability of your whole family as well as my own), I shall at once resign to you your father’s house and the guardianship of Mabel.  The chimera that alarmed you to frenzy can have no further existence, either in fact or fancy.  I am about to contract an advantageous marriage with a foreign lady of rank, wealth, and beauty, to whom I hope soon to introduce you.  I need not mention her name, if you are wise.  Be patient and cheerful; cultivate your talents, and take care of your good looks—­no woman can afford to dispense with these, however gifted; and you will soon find yourself as free as that ‘chartered libertine’ the air, for which last two words I am afraid you will be malicious enough to substitute the name you will not find appended, of your true friend and guardian, B.B.”

Had Wentworth spoken, then?  Did he know of my immurement?  Was it his beloved presence, his dear hand, that were to be made the prize of my silence and submission?  Was the bitter pill of humiliation I was now swallowing to be gilded thus?  No, no—­a thousand times, no!  He was not the man with whom to make such conditions—­the man I loved—­nay worshiped almost.  He was of the old heroic mould, that would have preferred any certainty to suspense, and death itself to an instant’s degradation.