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It was the answers that Mary and John were reading when Miss Bussey discovered them.

Mary’s ran:

“MY DEAR MISS TRAVERS: I have received your letter. I can’t tell you what it means to me. You say all must be over between us. Don’t be offended–but I won’t say that yet. It can’t be your duty to marry a man you don’t love. You forbid me to write or come to you; and you ask only for a word of good-by. I won’t say good-by. I’ll say Au revoir–au revoir, my darling.”

“Charlie.”

“Burn this.”

This was John’s:

“MY DEAR MR. ASHFORTH: What am I to say to you? Oh, why, why didn’t you tell me before? I oughtn’t to say that, but it is too late to conceal anything from you. Yes, you are right. It must be good-by. Yes, I will try to forget you. But oh, John, it’s very, very, very difficult. I don’t know how to sign this–so I won’t. You’ll know who it comes from, won’t you? Good-by. Burn this.”

These letters, no doubt, make it plain that there had been at least a momentary weakness both in Mary and in John; but in a true and charitable view their conduct in rising superior to temptation finally was all the more remarkable and praiseworthy. They had indeed, for the time, been carried away. Even now Mary found it hard not to make allowances for herself, little as she was prone to weakness when she thought of the impetuous abandon and conquering whirl with which Charlie Ellerton had wooed her; and John confessed that flight alone, a hasty flight from Interlaken after a certain evening spent in gazing at the Jungfrau, had saved him from casting everything to the winds and yielding to the slavery of Dora Bellairs’s sunny smiles and charming coquetries. He had always thought that that sort of girl had no attractions for him, just as Mary had despised ‘butterfly-men’ like Charlie Ellerton. Well, they were wrong. The only comfort was that shallow natures felt these sorrows less; it would have broken Mary’s heart (thought John), or John’s (thought Mary), but Dora and Charlie would soon find consolation in another. But here, oddly enough, John generally swore heartily and Mary always began to search for her handkerchief. “They’re as affectionate as one could wish when they’re together,” mused Miss Bussey, as she stroked the cat, “but at other times they’re gloomy company. I suppose they can’t be happy apart. Dear! dear!” and the good old lady fell to wondering whether she had ever been so foolish herself.

CHAPTER II

SYMPATHY IN SORROW

“Give me,” observed Sir Roger Deane, “Cannes, a fine day, a good set to look at, a beehive chair, a good cigar, a cocktail on one side and a nice girl on the other, and there I am! I don’t want anything else.”

General Bellairs pulled his white mustache and examined Sir Roger’s figure and surroundings with a smile.

“Then only Lady Deane is wanting to your complete happiness,” said he.

“Maud is certainly a nice girl, but when she deserts me—-“

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do,” interposed a young man, who wore an eye–glass and was in charge of a large jug. “She’s gone to Monte.”

“I might have known,” said Sir Roger. “Being missed here always means you’ve gone to Monte–like not being at church means you’ve gone to Brighton.”

“Surely she doesn’t play?” asked the General.

“Not she! She’s going to put it in a book. She writes books you know. She put me in the last–made me a dashed fool, too, by Jove!”

“That was unkind,” said the General, “from your wife.”

“Oh, Lord love you, she didn’t mean it. I was the hero. That’s how I came to be such an ass. The dear girl meant everything that was kind. Who’s taken her to Monte?”