One little friendly word in spite of our storm on the Tyrolese hill-side! If Miss Tringle is to be the arbiter of your fate;--why, then, let there be an end of everything between us. I should not care to be called upon to receive such a Mrs. Frank Houston as a dear friend. But if Tringle père should at the last moment prove hard-hearted, then let me see you again.--Yours, I. With this letter in his pocket he had gone down to Merle Park, determined to put an end to the Tringle affair in one way or the other. His duty, as he had planned it to himself, would not be altered by Imogene's letter; but if that duty should become impracticable, why, then, it would be open to him to consider whatever Imogene might have to say to him. The Docimers were now in London, where it was their custom to live during six months of the year; but Houston had not been at their house since he had parted from them in the Tyrol. He had spent but little of his time in London since the autumn, and, when there, had not been anxious to see people who had, at any rate, treated him somewhat roughly. But now it would be necessary that he should answer Imogene's letter. What should be the nature of such answer he certainly had not as yet decided, nor could he have decided before those very convincing assurances of Sir Thomas Tringle. That matter was at any rate over, and now the "Adriatic might wed another,"--if the Adriatic thought well to do so. The matter, however, was one which required a good deal of consideration. He gave to it ten minutes of intense thought, during which he consumed a cup of coffee and a cigarette; and then, throwing away the burnt end of the paper, he hurried into the morning-room, and wrote to the lady as follows;-- DEAR IMOGENE, You will not have to press to your bosom as my wife the second daughter of Sir Thomas Tringle, Bart. The high honour of that alliance has at last been refused by him in very plain language. Had she become Mrs. Frank Houston, I do not doubt but you would have done your duty to your own cousin. That lot, however, has not been written for me in the Book of Fates. The father is persistent in looking upon me as an idle profligate adventurer; and though he has been kind enough to hint more than once that it might be possible for me to achieve the young lady, he has succeeded in convincing me that I never should achieve anything beyond the barren possession of her beauty. A wife and family on my present very moderate income would be burdensome; and, therefore, with infinite regrets, I have bade adieu to Miss Tringle.