The passion which had once made such sentences seem written with fire had long been dead. So far as the author was concerned, this old letter had no power to move with elation or dejection. No vestige even of fondness or sentiment clung to this memorial of anticipated joy. But why was it hidden so carefully in her mother's desk, and why was it crumpled by frequent reading? And how could it have arrived there in the beginning? It was written in February after Jenny had left home. She must have dropped it on one of her visits, and her mother finding it must have thought there was something behind those few gay words. Jenny tried to remember if she had roused the suspicion of an intrigue by staying for a week-end with some girl friend. But, of course, she was away all the time, and often her mother must have thought she was staying with Maurice. All her scruples, all her care had gone for nothing. She had wrecked her love to no purpose, for her mother must have been weighed down by the imagination of her daughter's frailty. She must have brooded over it, fed her heart with the bitterness of disappointment and, ever since that final protest which made Jenny leave home, in gnawing silence. Jenny flung the letter into the fire and sat down to contemplate the dreadful fact that she had driven her mother slowly mad. These doctors with their abscess were all wrong. It was despair of her daughter's behavior which had caused it all. She went into the kitchen and watched the servant wrestle inadequately with her work, then wandered back to the parlor and slammed the lid of the trunk down to shut out the reproach of her mother's possessions. It was growing late. Soon she must get ready to start for the theater. What a failure she was! The front door bell rang and Jenny, glad of relief from her thoughts, went to open it. Trewhella, wringing wet, stepped into the passage. "Why, Miss Raeburn," he said, "here's a grand surprise." "Have you had your tea?" the hostess inquired. "Ess, had tea an hour ago or more. Dirty weather, 'tis, sure enough." He had followed her into the parlor as he spoke, and in the gray gloom he seemed to her gigantic and like rock immovable. "Finished your business?" she asked, oppressed by the silence which succeeded his entrance. "Ess, this right of way is settled for good or bad, according to which one's happy. And now I've got nothing to do but wait for your answer." The lamplighter's click and dying footfall left the room in a ghostly radiance, and the pallid illumination streaming through the lace curtains threw their reflection on the walls and table in a filigree of shadows. "I'll light the gas," said Jenny. "No, don't; but hark to what I do say. I'm regular burnt up for love of 'ee. My heart is like lead so heavy for the long waiting. Why won't 'ee marry me, my lovely? 'Tis a proper madness of love and no mistake. Maid Jenny, what's your answer?"