While Cecil was hovering on the borderland of mental darkness, a note came for her from Bertie, written on receipt of the packet that Lola had posted and was as follows:—­

“What can I imagine, Cecil, from this parcel of my letters returned without a word beyond the date and hour?  You must have packed them up at the very time I, as we had agreed, was asking for you from your father.  I shall not speak of the almost insulting way in which he received my proposals, for that we had anticipated; but you had promised in any event to be true to me.  You could not have changed in a summer day, I know your nature, my dearest little Cecil, and you would not have deserted me in this crisis unless your vulnerable side, jealousy, had been awakened.  Indeed you have no cause for it.  I cannot come back to the Lake, for your father would not receive me, but shall make no plans till I hear from you.

  “Yours, as ever, devotedly,

  “B.”

It was three weeks before Cecil could read this letter, and the following day Du Meresq got hers, written at her father’s dictation.

It was not a soothing one for an ardent lover to receive, and Bertie was at first furious, and considered himself very ill used.  With it all, though, he never believed that Cecil had really changed.  He thought very probably his unfortunate flirtation with Bluebell had come out; returning his letters looked like an acces of jealousy, and the one she had written was probably prompted by the same cause.

Any way, though, he was at a dead lock.  Her father, of course, would not allow her to see him, and while she was in this mood writing was useless.  His papers were in, and tired of inaction at Montreal, he obtained leave to go to England.  He lingered time enough to have received an answer to his letter, and, none coming, he took the first steamer homeward-bound.

Du Meresq had not acquainted his sister of his engagement to Cecil; for being aware of the Colonel’s inimical disposition, he did not wish to draw her into any difficulty about it.  She did not even know that he had written to Cecil since he left, as the letter had fallen into her husband’s hands, who, though not intending to withhold it altogether, considered it a document that might very well wait her convalescence.

Mrs. Rolleston wished to apprise Bertie of Cecil’s dangerous illness, but she had allowed one mail to pass, and they only recurred once a week, so that Du Meresq was embarking at Quebec the day her letter arrived at Montreal.

Cecil made a slow recovery.  The rheumatic fever, caused by sitting so many hours in wet clothes, and aggravated by the shock she had since received, hung about her many weeks, and as soon as she could be moved they took her back to Toronto.  Then her father most unwillingly gave her Du Meresq’s letter.  He was too honourable to destroy it; but, looking upon him as the frustrator of his plans for Cecil, and the indirect cause of her illness, viewed with impatience any chance of a renewal of intercourse.