I did not suppose she had sense enough to know it; trust a fool sometimes to see through a stone wall.

“Well, mother told Blanche that I did not even care for the ten thousand pounds, that I loved you, and had been engaged to you, and that you had discarded me.  That was the straw too many, and forthwith, Miss Blanche departed from Trevellian House, bag and baggage, and I hear she is about to marry the eldest son of Lord Haxton, a brainless idiot, not half as good-looking as I am.  There is conceit for you!  But you know I was always rather vain of my looks, and I do believe that the greatest terror poverty holds for me is the knowing that I must wear seedy hats and threadbare coats, and trousers a year behind.  Maybe Grey will sometime send me a box of his cast-off clothes.

“But what nonsense I am writing, and it is time I closed.  I hear father in his room, and guess it must be time for his tea, so I will go in and join him.  I hope either you, or Grey, or both, will write to me and tell me your plans.

    “Forever and ever yours,

    “Neil.”

“P.S.—­I saw Jack Trevellian the other day, and told him you were married.  For a minute he was as white as a piece of paper; then he rallied, and asked a great many questions about you.  It seems be thought that you died in Rome when you were so sick there, and he says Grey thought so, too.  Jack did not know to the contrary until one day last summer, when Flossie Meredith met him in the streets in Paris and told him you were in America.  Jack is growing stout, and looks quite the landed proprietor.  He keeps a lot of hounds, and has invited me to visit him.  But I am done with things of that sort.  Again good-by.

“P.S.  No. 2.—­I have had my tea with father, and when I told him I had been writing to you, he bade me give you his love, and say, that he should very much like to see you and your husband, and that if you are not coming to London, he will go to Stoneleigh, where he has never been since your grandfather died.  This, I take it, is right shabby in him.  But father is greatly changed.  Between you and me, he was awfully afraid of mother.  Poor mother, she meant well, and she was fond of me.

“By the way, Flossie is in London, with her grandmother, stopping at Langham’s, and Jack is there, too, and has asked the old lady to spend some weeks at Trevellian Castle.  It is frightfully lonesome there, he says, and he wants Flossie to brighten it up.  Can you read between the lines?  I think I can.  Flossie is bright as a button.

    “Again yours, forever,

    “Neil.”

Bessie read the letter, and then, passing it to her husband, said: 

“It is from Neil.  Would you like to see it?”

Taking it from her, Grey read it through, and then, leaning back in his chair, watched Bessie, as, with her elbows on her knees, and her face resting on her hands, she sat gazing intently into the fire with a wistful, earnest look which puzzled him a little.  Was she thinking of the two men who had loved her so much and one of whom loved her still?  And was she sending a regret after the title she had lost?  He did not believe so; and, after a moment, he reached out his hand, and laying it caressingly upon her soft, wavy hair, said to her: