At that moment, when Louis’s face was crimson with confusion and impatience, the door was softly pushed ajar, and he heard himself called in low, hoarse tones.  Miss Ponsonby was rising with an air of vexed surprise, but he never saw her, and, hastily crossing the room, he shut the door behind him, and followed the form that flitted up the stairs so fast, that he did not come up with her till she had entered the drawing-room, and stood leaning against a chair to gather breath.  She was very pale, and her eyes looked as if she had cried all night, but she controlled her voice to say, ’I could not bear that you should hear it from Aunt Melicent.’

’We had letters this morning, dearest.  Always thinking for me!  But I must think for you.  You can hardly stand—­’

He would have supported her to the sofa, but she shrank from him; and, leaning more heavily on the chair, said—­’Do you not know, Louis, all that must be at an end?’

’I know no such thing.  My father is here on purpose to assure you that it makes not the slightest difference to him.’

‘Yours!  Yes!  But oh, Louis!’ with a voice that, in its faintness and steadiness, had a sound of anguish—­’only think what I allowed him to make me do!  To insult my father and his choice!  It was a mistake, I know,’ she continued, fearing to be unjust and to grieve Louis; ‘but a most dreadful one!’

‘He says he should have brought you home all the same—­’ began Louis.  ‘Mary, you must sit down!’ he cried, interrupting himself to come nearer; and she obeyed, sinking into the chair.  ’What a state you are in!  How could you go through yesterday?  How could you be distressed, and not let me know?’

’I could not spoil their wedding-day, that we had wished for so long.’

‘Then you had the letter?’

’In the morning.  Oh, that I had examined farther!  Oh, that I had never come home!’

‘Mary!  I cannot hear you say so.’

’You would have been spared all this.  You were doing very well without me—­as you will—­’

He cried out with deprecating horror.

‘Louis!’ she said, imploringly.  ’Oh, Louis! do not make it harder for me to do right.’

’Why—­what?  I don’t understand!  Your father has not so much as heard how we stand together.  He cannot be desiring you to give me up.’

’He—­he forbids me to enter on anything of the sort with you.  I don’t know what made him think it possible, but he does.  And—­’ again Mary waited for the power of utterance, ’he orders me to come out with Mrs. Willis, in the Valdivia, and it sails on the 12th of December!’

’But Mary, Mary! you cannot be bound by this.  It is only fair towards him, towards all of us, to give him time to answer our letters.’

Mary shook her head.  ’The only condition, he says, on which he could allow me to remain, would be if I were engaged to James Frost.’