Ellen’s face looked almost ugly in its lowering resolution.  Upstairs Rosemary was crying into her pillow.

So Mr. Meredith found his lady alone and looking very beautiful.  Rosemary had not made any special toilet for the occasion; she wanted to, but she thought it would be absurd to dress up for a man you meant to refuse.  So she wore her plain dark afternoon dress and looked like a queen in it.  Her suppressed excitement coloured her face to brilliancy, her great blue eyes were pools of light less placid than usual.

She wished the interview were over.  She had looked forward to it all day with dread.  She felt quite sure that John Meredith cared a great deal for her after a fashion—­and she felt just as sure that he did not care for her as he had cared for his first love.  She felt that her refusal would disappoint him considerably, but she did not think it would altogether overwhelm him.  Yet she hated to make it; hated for his sake and—­Rosemary was quite honest with herself—­for her own.  She knew she could have loved John Meredith if—­if it had been permissible.  She knew that life would be a blank thing if, rejected as lover, he refused longer to be a friend.  She knew that she could be very happy with him and that she could make him happy.  But between her and happiness stood the prison gate of the promise she had made to Ellen years ago.  Rosemary could not remember her father.  He had died when she was only three years old.  Ellen, who had been thirteen, remembered him, but with no special tenderness.  He had been a stern, reserved man many years older than his fair, pretty wife.  Five years later their brother of twelve died also; since his death the two girls had always lived alone with their mother.  They had never mingled very freely in the social life of the Glen or Lowbridge, though where they went the wit and spirit of Ellen and the sweetness and beauty of Rosemary made them welcome guests.  Both had what was called “a disappointment” in their girlhood.  The sea had not given up Rosemary’s lover; and Norman Douglas, then a handsome, red-haired young giant, noted for wild driving and noisy though harmless escapades, had quarrelled with Ellen and left her in a fit of pique.

There were not lacking candidates for both Martin’s and Norman’s places, but none seemed to find favour in the eyes of the West girls, who drifted slowly out of youth and bellehood without any seeming regret.  They were devoted to their mother, who was a chronic invalid.  The three had a little circle of home interests—­books and pets and flowers—­which made them happy and contented.

Mrs. West’s death, which occurred on Rosemary’s twenty-fifth birthday, was a bitter grief to them.  At first they were intolerably lonely.  Ellen, especially, continued to grieve and brood, her long, moody musings broken only by fits of stormy, passionate weeping.  The old Lowbridge doctor told Rosemary that he feared permanent melancholy or worse.