At the same time, she saw Perigal’s conduct in the cold light of reason.  She was surprised to find how bitter she was with herself for loving a man who could behave as selfishly as he had done.  While the mood possessed her, she went to a post-office and sent a reply-paid telegram to Perigal, telling him to come to town at once, and asking him to wire the train by which he would arrive.  After sending the telegram, she somewhat repented of her precipitancy, and waited in much suspense to see what the answer would be.  When, some two hours later, she heard the double knock of a telegraph boy at the door, her heart was filled with nervous apprehension, in which reawakened love for Perigal bore no inconsiderable part.  She opened his reply with trembling hands.  “Why?  Wire or write reason—­love—­ Charles,” it ran.

In reply, she sat down and wrote a long letter, in which she told him how she was situated, reminded him of his promises, which, if he still loved her, as he had professed times out of number in his letters, it was now more than ever incumbent on him to fulfil; she concluded by imploring him to decide either one way or the other and put an end to her suspense.  Two days later, the first post brought a letter from Wales.  By the time it arrived Mavis had, in some measure, schooled her fears and rebellious doubtings of her lover; therefore, she was not so disappointed at its contents as she would otherwise have been.  The letter was written in much the same strain as his other communications.  While expressing unalterable love for Mavis, together with pride at the privileges she had permitted him to enjoy, it told her how he was beset by countless perplexities, and that directly he saw his way clear he would do as she wished:  in the meantime, she was to trust him as implicitly as before.

Mavis sighed as she finished the letter; she then became lost in troubled thought, during which she was uncertain whether to laugh for joy or sorrow.  She laughed for joy, perhaps because her mind, as once before when similarly confronted, had chosen the easier way of self-preservation, an instinct specially insistent in one of Mavis’s years.  She laughed for very happiness and persuaded herself that she was indeed a lucky girl to be loved so devotedly.

Although the colour soon went out of the blue sky of her joy-world, and its trees and flowers lacked much of their one-time freshness, she was not a little grateful for her short experience of its delights.  It helped her to bear the slights and disappointments of the following days, of which she had no inconsiderable share.