She was gone; and as I sat there I reflected for the second time that evening what an ass I had been. Marjorie had taken what I thought a harmless request and turned it into an insult. I cursed anew the damnable training I had had in the field of love-making. It had me as unfit to win the heart of a pure and virtuous maiden as a brigand. The worst was, she had gone to her chamber with the thought still on her mind that I was a liar of the meanest stripe. After professing a pure love I had, at the first opportunity, she imagined, showed the emptiness of my pretence, the falseness of my heart. Sleep fled this time from my eyes, and no wonder. I propped my head high with pillows and resigned myself to wakefulness and moody thoughts till daybreak. As soon as it was light I took stationery from my trunk and wrote an impassioned letter to my beloved, that she might see, before we met again, how terribly she had misjudged me. I told her the story as it really was--my sudden awakening, the longing that possessed me for some recognition from the being to whom all my life's love had been pledged. I detailed the sickness of heart with which I realized how woefully my object was misapprehended. I touched on the absence of sleep that followed my error, and in closing begged her to write me just a word to say that I was forgiven, before I underwent the agony of meeting her unjustly accusing eyes. This I signed, "Your husband that is to be--that must be--with all respect and love." It was almost as great a shock as if she had refused to read my note when the maid whom I summoned to deliver it, brought me a tiny sheet of paper bearing these words: "Of course you are forgiven, my dear boy. I understood it all a minute after I left you. Sorry you took it to heart. If you wish to please me do not allude to it when we meet." From some remarks that I heard below stairs I gathered that Edgerly had left the house, taking his baggage with him, before the early breakfast was served. A little later I learned that he had gone to a town on the opposite side of the island where the capital is located. I therefore came to the conclusion that he had decided not to push his intention of mauling me at present. Probably, I reflected, he did not realize how easy a victim I was likely to be in the present condition of my health. We passed the rest of the time while at St. Croix in morning work, midday siestas, evening drives and after dinner talks. Marjorie succeeded in keeping the conversation away from the delicate ground of the former occasion, but she did not succeed in eliminating the subject from my mind. Knowing from the letter I had read at Eggert's, that she cared much for me, I was not to be dissuaded from my intention of taking her home, either as my actual or my promised bride. The security I felt gave me willingness to wait. What I needed now was to strengthen the affection she had admitted until it was too strong for her to resist longer.