That night late there came a note by the last post--that post which sometimes adds horrors to the night in London, with missives which interfere hopelessly with the quiet of the hour. In it Charles Wargrave thanked her that she did not accept his heart carelessly, as if it were a cup of tea. He thanked her for her decided answer, but he thought she would at least understand him when he said that, so far as he was concerned, it could not stop there. Next time it would not at least be a question which she had not anticipated, and he would still hope that her prayer for his welfare might be accomplished without the condition she put upon it--with which there could be no welfare for him at all. It cannot be said that, though her heart beat at the sight of it, this letter was a great surprise to Claire. Notwithstanding her conviction that it was a hypothetical case which she was putting to herself, she felt now that she had not indeed really imagined or believed that Charles Wargrave, a man who had got his own will all his life, was now to be thwarted in so important a matter without resistance or protest. She felt at once that this was what was to be expected. The letter, however, piqued her a little--annoyed her a little. It would have been reasonable that he should have met her arguments one way or other. It would have been civil to have protested, and declared that she was not old, though she pleased to call herself so. Though Mademoiselle was herself so full of common-sense on this subject, as on most others, she had a feeling that it was a failure of politeness on the part of Charles Wargrave not to have said something about it. When she discovered this sentiment in her own spirit she was a little ashamed of it, but still it was there. And the note in general said so little that it piqued and interested her. It was skilfully done; but Mademoiselle did not see this--neither, perhaps, did the writer. Perhaps Mademoiselle was momentarily vexed, too, that there was no need to answer it. If there is one weakness which is common to human nature, it is the pleasure which people take in explaining themselves, especially on emotional subjects, so as to leave their correspondents in no doubt as to their real meaning. Claire had written very hurriedly the first time, with a genuine desire to sweep such a troublesome episode out of her life. She felt now that it would be pleasant to fill out and strengthen all these arguments, and especially to bring out that point of age of which he had taken no notice. He might, perhaps, from what she had herself said, think her forty or more, seeing that he did not object to her statement about her age; and she would have liked, while reiterating that, to have made it quite clear what her age was--not, after all, so much as he might think. But her good sense was sufficiently effective still to make her feel that no answer was needed to his letter. She put it away in the