“Don’t abuse him, brother!  Let the knowledge that we are parted forever, satisfy your resentment.  Since he has not appealed to me from your verdict, I am left to suppose that, upon second thoughts, he has resolved to acquiesce in your will.  I do not blame him for the change of purpose.”  Still impassive in feature and voice, still not withdrawing her fixed gaze from that one point upon the floor.  “He, too, has pride, and it matches yours.  I do not say mine.  I question, sometimes, if I have any.”

“If your conjecture be correct, you cannot object to return the letters you have already received from him,” said Winston, pressing on to the conclusion of a disagreeable business.  “Since you are not likely to add to your stock of these valuables, you do not care to retain them, I suppose?  I believe the rule is total surrender of souvenirs when a rupture is pronounced hopeless.”

“I shall keep them a week longer!”

She assigned no reason for the resolution, and her manner, without being sullen, aggravated her brother into wrath, the effusion of which was a withering sneer.

“Your hope in his repentance is creditable to the strength—­or weakness—­of woman’s love.  But have your way.  The illustrious record of his former life is a powerful argument in favor of clemency.  In a week, then!”

He nodded dismissal, wheeled his chair around to the table, dipped a pen in the standish, and pulled an account-book toward him.

He was surprised and not pleased, nevertheless, that Mabel retired without other reply than a simple “Good-night,” said without temper, or any evidence of excitement.  A month before, a milder sarcasm, the lightest breath of reproof, would have brought her to his feet in a paroxysm of tears, to implore pardon for her contumacy, and to promise obedience for all time to come.  She was getting beyond his control the while she offered no open resistance to his government.  Was sorrowful shame, or her infatuation for the adventurer he cursed in his heart by his gods, the influence that was petrifying her into this unlovely caricature of her once bright and affectionate self?

She presented herself, unsummoned, in his study at the expiration of the period she had designated, a pacquet in her hand, neatly done up and sealed.

“I will trouble you to direct it,” was all she said, as she laid it before him.

“This is done of your own free will—­remember!” he said, impressively.  “In after years, should you be so unreasonable as to regret it, there must be no misconception on the subject between us.  If you wish, at this, the eleventh hour, to draw back, I shall not oppose you.”

“You will write the address, then, if you please!” was Mabel’s reply, showing him the surface intended for it.

Then she left him.

“A sensible girl, after all! a genuine Aylett, in will and stoicism!” commented the master of the situation, beginning in his round, legible characters, the inscription he hoped never to trace again.  “So endeth her first lesson in Cupid’s manual!”