None had yet seen him since his brother’s funeral, and his aunt received no answer to a very strenuous plea.  He wrote to her, indeed, about affairs, and even asked her for advice upon certain matters; but they affected the past and Daniel rather than the future and himself.  She could not fail to notice the supreme change that power had brought with it; his very handwriting seemed to have acquired a firmer line; while his diction certainly showed more strength of purpose.  Could power modify character?  It seemed impossible.  She supposed, rather, that character, latent till this sudden change of fortune, had been revealed by power.  Her first fears for the future of the business abated; but with increasing respect for Raymond, the former affection perished.  She was firm in her moral standards, and to find his first use of power an evasion of solemn and sacred promises, made Miss Ironsyde Raymond’s enemy.  That he ignored her appeals to his manhood and honesty did not modify her changed attitude.  She found herself much wounded by his callous conduct, and while his past weakness had been forgiven, his new strength proved unforgivable.

Her appeal was, however, indirectly acknowledged, for Sabina received another letter from Raymond in which he mentioned Miss Ironsyde’s communication.

“My aunt,” he wrote, “does not realise the situation, or appreciate the fact that love may remain a much more enduring and lively emotion outside marriage than inside it.  There are, of course, people who find chains bearable enough, and even grow to like them, as convicts were said to do; but you are not such a craven, no more am I. We must think of the future, not the past, and I feel very sure that if we married, the result would be death to our friendship.  We had a splendid time, and we might still have a splendid time, if you could be unconventional and realise how many other women are also.  But probably you have decided against my suggestions, or I should have heard from you.  So I suppose you hate me, and I’m awfully sorry to think it.  You won’t come to me, then.  But that doesn’t lessen my obligations, and I’m going to take every possible care of you and your child, Sabina, whether you come or not.  He is my child, too, and I shan’t forget it.  If you would like to see me you shall when I return to Bridport, pretty soon now; but if you would rather not do so, then let me know who represents you, and I will hear what you and your mother would wish.”

She wrote several answers to this and destroyed them.  They were bitter and contemptuous, and as each was finished she realised its futility.  She could but sting; she could not seriously hurt.  Even her sting would not trouble him much, for a man who had done what he had done, was proof against the scorn and hate of a woman.  Only greater power than his own could make him feel.  Her powerlessness maddened her—­her powerlessness contrasted with his remorseless strength.  But he used his strength like a coward.