“Oh, nothing.  A sudden twinge.  A man does not get rolled over sharp rocks, by a mountain torrent, for nothing.”

“No, indeed.”

“Never mind that, if I’m not to be punished in my heart as well.  This resolution, not to marry for two years, is it your own idea? or has somebody put it into your head since we stood on Cairnhope, and looked at Bollinghope?”

“Please give me credit for it,” said Grace, turning very red:  “it is the only sensible one I have had for a long time.”

Mr. Coventry groaned aloud, and turned very pale.

Grace said she wanted to go upstairs for her work, and so got away from him.

She turned at the door, and saw him sink into a chair, with an agony in his face that was quite new to him.

She fled to her own room, to think it all over, and she entered it so rapidly that she caught Jael crying, and rocking herself before the fire.

The moment she came in Jael got up, and affected to be very busy, arranging things; but always kept her back turned to Grace.

The young lady sat down, and leaned her cheek on her hand, and reflected very sadly and seriously on the misery she had left in the drawing-room, and the tears she had found here.

Accustomed to make others bright and happy by her bare presence, this beautiful and unselfish young creature was shocked at the misery she was sowing around her, and all for something her judgment told her would prove a chimera.  And again she asked herself was she brave enough, and selfish enough, to defy her father and her godfather, whose mind was written so clearly in that terrible inscription.

She sat there, cold at heart, a long time, and at last came to a desperate resolution.

“Give me my writing-desk.”

Jael brought it her.

“Sit down there where I can see you; and don’t hide your tears from me.  I want to see you cry.  I want every help.  I wasn’t born to make everybody miserable:  I am going to end it.”

She wrote a little, and then she stopped, and sighed; then she wrote a little more, and stopped, and sighed.  Then she burned the letter, and began again; and as she wrote, she sighed; and as she wrote on, she moaned.

And, as she wrote on, the tears began to fall upon the paper.

It was piteous to see the struggle of this lovely girl, and the patient fortitude that could sigh, and moan, and weep, yet go on doing the brave act that made her sigh, and moan, and weep.

At last, the letter was finished, and directed; and Grace put it in her bosom, and dismissed Jael abruptly, almost harshly, and sat down, cold and miserable, before the fire.

At dinner-time her eyes were so red she would not appear.  She pleaded headache, and dined in her own room.

Meantime Mr. Coventry passed a bitter time.

He had heard young Little say, “Wait two years.”  And now Grace was evading and procrastinating, and so, literally, obeying that young man, with all manner of false pretenses.  This was a revelation, and cast back a bright light on many suspicious things he had observed in the church.