love and of the highest respect.  I tell Genevieve that, she ought to honor him for it, and that she must never be jealous of a memory.  We are very happy in Mr. Vostrand’s cordial approval of the match.  He is so glad to think that Mr. D. is a business man.  His cable from Seattle was most enthusiastic.

“M.  D.”

Westover did not know whether to laugh or cry when he read this letter, which covered several sheets of paper in lines that traversed each other in different directions.  His old, youthful ideal of Mrs. Vostrand finally perished in its presence, though still he could not blame her for wishing to see her daughter well married after having seen her married so ill.  He asked himself, without getting any very definite response, whether Mrs. Vostrand had always been this kind of a woman, or had grown into it by the use of arts which her peculiar plan of life had rendered necessary to her.  He remembered the intelligent toleration of Cynthia in speaking of her, and his indignation in behalf of the girl was also thrill of joy for her escape from the fate which Mrs. Vostrand was so eagerly invoking for her daughter.  But he thought of Genevieve with something of the same tenderness, and with a compassion that was for her alone.  She seemed to him a victim who was to be sacrificed a second time, and he had clearly a duty to her which he must not evade.  The only question could be how best to discharge it, and Westover took some hours from his work to turn the question over in his mind.  In the end, when he was about to give the whole affair up for the present, and lose a night’s sleep over it later, he had an inspiration, and he acted upon it at once.  He perceived that he owed no formal response to the sentimental insincerities of Mrs. Vostrand’s letter, and he decided to write to Durgin himself, and to put the case altogether in his hands.  If Durgin chose to show the Vostrands what he should write, very well; if he chose not to show it, then Westover’s apparent silence would be a sufficient reply to Mrs. Vostrand’s appeal.

“I prefer to address you,” he began, “because I do not choose to let you think that I have any feeling to indulge against you, and because I do not think I have the right to take you out of your own keeping in any way.  You would be in my keeping if I did, and I do not wish that, not only because it would be a bother to me, but because it would be a wrong to you.

“Mrs. Vostrand, whose letter to me I will leave you to answer by showing her this, or in any other manner you choose, tells me you do not want me to spare the truth concerning you.  I have never been quite certain what the truth was concerning you; you know that better than I do; and I do not propose to write your biography here.  But I will remind you of a few things.

“The first day I saw you, I caught you amusing yourself with the terror of two little children, and I had the pleasure of cuffing you for