Adela spoke in a tone of measured gravity which was quite new in her.

’You have not displeased me, Letty.  I don’t think you have been to blame in any way; I am sure you had no choice but to do as he asked you.  You have repeated all he said?’

’Yes, all; all the words, that is.  There was something that I can’t repeat.’

‘And if I consented to see him, how was he to know?’

‘I promised to write to him.  He is staying at Agworth.’

’You mustn’t do that, dear.  I will write to him myself, then I can thank him for returning the book.  What is his address?’

Letty gave it.

‘It is, of course, impossible for me to see him,’ pursued Adela, still in the same measured tones.  ’If I write myself it will save you any more trouble.  Forget it, if I seemed unkind, dear.’

’Adela, I can’t forget it.  You are not like yourself, not at all.  Oh, how I wish this had happened sooner!  Why, why can’t you see him, darling?  I think you ought to; I do really think so.’

’I must be the best judge of that, Letty.  Please let us speak of it no more.’

The sweet girl-face was adamant, its expression a proud virginity; an ascetic sternness moulded the small, delicate lips.  Letty’s countenance could never have looked like that.

Left to herself again, Adela took the parcel upon her lap and sat dreaming.  It was long before her face relaxed; when it did so, the mood that succeeded was profoundly sorrowful.  One would have said that it was no personal grief that absorbed her, but compassion for the whole world’s misery.

When at length she undid the wrapping, her eye was at once caught by the papers within the volume.  She started, and seemed afraid to touch the book.  Her first thought was that Eldon had enclosed a letter; but she saw that there was no envelope, only two or three loose slips.  At length she examined them and found the sonnets.  They had no heading, but at the foot of each was written the date of composition.

She read them.  Adela’s study of poetry had not gone beyond a school-book of selections, with the works of Mrs. Hemans and of Longfellow, and the ‘Christian Year.’  Hubert’s verses she found difficult to understand; their spirit, the very vocabulary, was strange to her.  Only on a second reading did she attain a glimmering of their significance.  Then she folded them again and laid them on the table.

Before going to her bedroom she wrote this letter: 

’DEAR MR, ELDON,—­I am much obliged to you for returning the “Christian Year.”  Some papers were left in its pages by accident, and I now enclose them.

’Miss Tew also brought me a message from you.  I am sorry that I cannot do as you wish.  I am unable to ask you to call, and I hope you will understand me when I say that any other kind of meeting is impossible.

’I am, yours truly,
‘ADELA WALTHAM.’

It was Adela’s first essay in this vein of composition.  The writing cost her an hour, and she was far from satisfied with the final form.  But she copied it in a firm hand, and made it ready for posting on the morrow.