"He’ll think it very strange. I don’t see how I can explain it. He’s very anxious to talk to you. He sent you a message last night, but you were asleep." So that was what the knock had meant! Dawn was glad she had not answered it. "Oh, please, please," she said, clasping her hands in the attitude of pleading, "couldn’t you just explain to him that I’m a very silly girl, but I should like just these last few minutes to myself. Tell him that if he has any message, please to tell it to you, and to let me be by myself now. Tell him he doesn’t know how a girl feels when she is going to stop being a girl. Tell him, please, that if he has any sympathy for me at all, he won’t ask to see me now. It is only a little while, and I want it to myself." Her great pleading eyes met Mrs. Van Rensselaer’s cold gaze, and her whole slender figure took an attitude of intense wistfulness. The elder woman, cold and unloving as she was, could not but acknowledge that the girl was very beautiful. Her heart might have been touched more had it not been for the gnawing thought that this child’s mother had been the canker-worm which had blighted the step-mother’s whole life. She turned grimly from the girl, well content that her plans were coming out as she desired, yet not entirely comfortable in mind or conscience. Almost she determined to risk telling the girl everything, yet dared not, lest she utterly refuse to be married even at this late hour. "Well, I suppose you must have your own way. You always have," she said grimly. Dawn wondered when. "I’ll do my best to explain your state of mind," continued Mrs. Van Rensselaer, "though I’m sure I don’t know how he’ll take it. It’s my opinion he isn’t going to have a bed of roses through life, being a husband to you, any way, and I suppose he may as well begin to learn." With which unsympathetic remark, she went heavily out of the girl’s room, and into her own, where she speedily got herself into her wedding garments. A red spot burned in either sallow cheek, but her mouth wore the line of victory. So far she had carried out her schemes well. CHAPTER X At breakfast time, as the other guests were coming downstairs, Mrs. Van Rensselaer beckoned Charles inside the dining-room door, and gave him his message in a low tone. "It will be all right, Mr. Winthrop. Your offer will be accepted gratefully, but she asks you to be kind enough to leave her to herself until the time for the ceremony. She is so much shaken by this whole thing that she is afraid to talk about it, lest it will unnerve her. She says she does not need to talk it over, that you are very kind, and if you have any message, you can send it by me after breakfast."