"It has turned out just as I predicted, Mr.
Calvert," said she, pettishly. "Young Loyd is
furious at having his pretensions referred to you,
and will not hear of it. His letter to Florence
is all but reproachful, and she has gone home with
her eyes full of tears. This note for you came
as an enclosure."

Calvert took the note from her hands, and
laying it beside him on the rock, smoked on
without speaking.

"'I knew everything that would happen!"
said Miss Grainger. "The old man gave
the letter you wrote to his son, who
immediately sat down and wrote to Florry. I
have not seen the letter myself, but Milly
declares that it goes so far as to say, that if
Florry admits of any advice or interference on
your part, it is tantamount to a desire to break
off the engagement. He declares, however, that
he neither can nor will believe such a thing to
be possible. That he knows she is ignorant of
the whole intrigue. Milly assures me that was
the word, intrigue; and she read it twice over
to be certain. He also says something, which I
do not quite understand, about my being led
beyond the bounds of judgment by what he
calls a traditional reverence for the name you
bear—but one thing is plain enough, he utterly
rejects the reference to you, or, indeed, to any
one now but Florence herself, and says, 'This is
certainly a case for your own decision, and I will
accept of none other than yours.'"

"Is there anything more about me than you
have said?" asked Calvert, calmly.

"No, I believe not. He begs, in the postscript,
that the enclosed note may be given to
you, that's all."

Calvert took a long breath; he felt as if a
weight had been removed from his heart, and he
smoked on in silence.

"Won't you read it," cried she, eagerly. "I
am burning to hear what he says."

"I can tell you just as well without breaking
the seal," said he, with a half scornful
smile. "I know the very tone and style of it,
and I recognise the pluck with which such a
man, when a thousand miles off, dares to address
one like myself."

"Read it, though; let me hear his own
words!" cried she.

''I'm not impatient for it," said he; "I have
had a sufficient dose of bitters this morning,
and I'd just as soon spare myself the acrid
petulance of this poor creature."

"You are very provoking, I must say," said
she, angrily, and turned away towards the house.
Calvert watched her till she disappeared behind
a copse, and then hastily broke open the letter.

"Middle Temple, Saturday.
"Sir,—My father has forwarded to me a letter
which with very questionable good taste,
you addressed to him. The very relations which
subsisted between us when we parted, might
have suggested a more delicate course on your
part. Whatever objections I might then, however,
have made to your interference in matters
personal to myself, have now become
something more than mere objections, and I flatly
declare that. I will not listen to one word from
a man whose name is now a shame and a
disgrace throughout Europe. That you may
quit the roof which has sheltered you hitherto
without the misery of exposure, I have
forborne in my letter to narrate the story which is
on every tongue here; but, as the price of this
forbearance, I desire and I exact that you
leave the villa on the day you receive this, and
cease from that day forth to hold any intercourse
with the family who reside in it. If I do not,
therefore, receive a despatch by telegraph,
informing me that you accede to these conditions,
I will forward by the next post the full details
which the press of England is now giving of your
infamous conduct, and of the legal steps which
are to be instituted against you.

"Remember distinctly, sir, that I am only in
this pledging myself for that short interval of
time which will suffer you to leave the house of
those who offered you a refuge against calamity
—not crime—and whose shame would be
overwhelming if they but knew the character of him
they sheltered. You are to leave before night-
fall of the day this reaches, and never to return.
You are to abstain from all correspondence. I
make no conditions as to future acquaintanceship,
because I know that were I even so minded,
no efforts of mine could save you from that
notoriety which a few days more will attach to you,
never to leave you.

"I am, your obedient servant,

"Joseph Loyd"

Calvert tried to laugh as he finished the reading
of this note, but the attempt was a failure,
and a sickly pallor spread over his face, and his
lips trembled. "Let me only meet you, I
don't care in what presence, or in what place,"
muttered he, "and you shall pay dearly for
this. But now to think of myself. This is
just the sort of fellow to put his threat into
execution, the more since he will naturally be
anxious to get me away from this. What is to
be done? With one week more I could almost
answer for my success. Ay, Mademoiselle Florry,
you were deeper in the toils than you suspected.
The dread of me that once inspired a painful
feeling had grown into a sort of self-pride that
elevated her in her own esteem. She was so
proud of her familiarity with a wild animal, and
so vain of her influence over him! So pleasant
to say, 'See, savage as he is, he'll not turn upon
me!' And now to rise from the table, when the
game is all but won! Confound the fellow, how
he has wrecked my fortunes! As if I had not
enough, too, on my hands without this!"
And he walked impatiently to and fro, like a
I animal in fretfulness. "I wanted to
think over Drayton's letter calmly and
deliberately, and here comes this order, this
command, to be up and away—away from the only
spot in which I can say I enjoyed an hour's
peace for years and years, and from the two or
three left to me, of all the world, who think it