"Papa," she repeated, still in the same stony voice, "I wish you would end this scene; it is killing me. Tell him, will you, that I have burnt all his letters, every one. Insist on his returning mine. His presents are all tied up in a parcel in my room, except this; will you give it back to him?" She took off her ring, a small common turquoise which Francis had given her when he was young and poor, and laid it on the table. Francis snatched it up, handled it a minute, and then threw it violently into the fire. "Bear witness, Mr. Johnston, and you too, Dora, that it is Penelope, not I, who breaks our engagement. I would have fulfilled it honourably--I would have married her." "Would you?" cried Penelope, with flashing eyes, "no--not that last degradation--no!" "I would have married her," Francis continued, "and made her a good husband too. Her reason for refusing me is puerile--perfectly puerile. No woman of sense, who knows anything of the world, would urge it for a moment. Nor man either, unless he was your favourite--who I believe is at the bottom of this, who, for all you know, may be doing exactly as I have done--Doctor Urquhart." Papa started and said hastily, "Confine yourself to the subject on hand, Francis. Of what is this that my daughter accuses you? Tell me, and let me judge." Francis hesitated, and then said, "Send away these girls, and you shall hear." Suddenly, it flashed upon me _what_ it was. How the intuition came, how little things, before unnoticed, seemed to rise and put themselves together, including Saturday's story--and the shudder that ran through Penelope from head to foot, when on Sunday morning old Mrs. Cartwright curtsied to her at the churchdoor--all this I cannot account for, but I seemed to know as well as if I had been told everything. I need not explain, for evidently you know it also, and it is so dreadful, so unspeakably dreadful. Oh, Max, for the first minute or so, I felt as if the whole world were crumbling from under my feet--as I could trust nobody, believe in nobody--until I remembered you. My dear Max, my own dear Max! Ah, wretched Penelope! I took her hand as she stood, but she twisted it out of mine again. I listened mechanically to Francis, as he again began rapidly and eagerly to exculpate himself to my father. "She may tell you all, if she likes. I have done no worse than hundreds do in my position, and under my unfortunate circumstances, and the world forgives them, and women too. How could I help it? I was too poor to marry. And before I married I meant to do everyone justice--I meant--" Penelope covered her ears. Her face was so ghastly,-that papa himself said, "I think Francis, explanations are idle. You had better defer them and go." "I will take you at your word," he replied haughtily. "If you or she think better of it, or of me, I shall be at any time ready to fulfil my engagement--honourably, as a gentleman should. Good-bye; will you not shake hands with me, Penelope?"