Even at this moment it struck Aimée that there was surprise as well as delight in the voice. Evidently Mr. Kyrle had been by no means sure that Miss Berrien would appear. But the rapture of his greeting made it harder for Aimée to explain that she was not the person so eagerly welcomed, and when she tried to speak her voice failed. She could only gasp, after a moment: “I have come to tell you--” “Never mind what,” interrupted the young man eagerly, with probably a prudent fear of what the communication might be. “You are here; that is enough. There will be time to tell me anything and everything when we are afloat. Come, here is the boat.” He drew her toward him, and so compelling was his grasp that Aimée felt that in another moment she might be in the boat and _en route_ for the West Indies. This gave her the courage of desperation. She made a determined effort to release herself as she said more clearly: “You are mistaken. I am not the person you think. I have only come to tell you that _she_ can not come.” “Not the person I think!” repeated the young man. He released her hands and fell back a step in his amazement. The violent revulsion of feeling which he underwent was evident in his voice, and the sharpness of his disappointment so pierced Aimée’s heart that she forgave the sharpness of his tone, as he went on: “Then who are you--and why are you here?” “I am Fanny’s cousin,” the girl replied, then suddenly checked herself. “But you--who are _you_?” she said. “I was told to ask your name before I gave any message.” “There is no doubt who I am,” he replied, sternly. “My name is Lennox Kyrle. What message have you for me?” “Only that--that Fanny can not come,” answered Aimée, tremulously. She paused and clasped her hands nervously together, trying to recall all that Fanny had impressed on her mind to be delivered, but only the principal points remained, and before she could gather them into shape, as it were, Mr. Kyrle justified his character for impetuosity by breaking in: “That she can not come,” he repeated. “Is that all, after having brought me here? _Why_ can not she come?” The indignant emphasis of the last question was, under the circumstances, natural enough; and, confronted with it, Aimée felt in every fiber the shame of the answer which she was bound to give: “Because she--has changed her mind,” she said desperately, grasping the main fact and forgetting all the fluent words with which Fanny had clothed it. “She bade me tell you that she is very sorry, but that she can not elope with you and break her mother’s heart.” “Her consideration for her mother is most admirable,” said the young man with grim sarcasm. “It is only a pity that it did not influence her a little sooner. And so she is ‘sorry’ that she can not elope! She could say no more for the calamity of missing a ball.”