“Untrammelled!” he repeated, in a low, almost desperate tone.

“Yes,” she replied, warmly,—­“free to carry out every generous and noble impulse of manhood.  I tell you frankly that you have led me to believe that you have such impulses.”

His face became ashen in its hue, and he trembled visibly.  He seemed about to speak some words as if they were wrung from him, then he became almost rigid in his self-control as he said, “There are limitations of which you cannot dream;” and he introduced a topic wholly remote from himself.

A chill benumbed her very heart, and she scarcely sought to prevent it from tingeing her words and manner.  A few moments later the postman left a letter.  She saw Lane’s handwriting and said, “Will you pardon me a moment, that I may learn that my friend is well?”

Glancing at the opening words, her eyes flashed with excitement as she exclaimed:  “The campaign has opened!  They are on the march this stormy night.”

“May I ask if your letter is from Strahan?” Merwyn faltered.

“It is not from Mr. Strahan,” she replied, quietly.

He arose and stood before her as erect and cold as herself.  “Will you kindly give Mr. Vosburgh that book?” he said.

“Certainly.”

“Will you also please say that I shall probably go to my country place in a day or two, and therefore may not see him again very soon.”

She was both disappointed and angry, for she had meant kindly by him.  The very consciousness that she had unbent so greatly, and had made what appeared to her pride an unwonted advance, incensed her, and she replied, in cold irony:  “I will give papa your message.  It will seem most natural to him, now that spring has come, that you should vary your mercantile with agricultural pursuits.”

He appeared stung to the very soul by her words, and his hands clinched in his desperate effort to restrain himself.  His white lips moved as he looked at her from eyes full of the agony of a wounded spirit.  Suddenly his tense form became limp, and, with a slight despairing gesture, he said, wearily:  “It is of no use.  Good-by.”

CHAPTER XXVI.

Marian’s interpretation of Merwyn.

Shallow natures, like shallow waters, are easily agitated, and outward manifestations are in proportion to the shallowness.  Superficial observers are chiefly impressed by visible emotion and tumult.

With all her faults, Marian had inherited from her father a strong nature.  Her intuitions had become womanly and keen, and Merwyn’s dumb agony affected her more deeply than a torrent of impetuous words or any outward evidence of distress.  She went back to her chair and shed bitter tears; she scarcely knew why, until her father’s voice aroused her by saying, “Why, Marian dear, what is the matter?”

“Oh, I am glad you have come,” she said.  “I have caused so much suffering that I feel as if I had committed a crime;” and she gave an account of the recent interview.