“Divil a word will I say about it. I’m too much afraid of th’ ould chap--and of you, too, Miss Letty.” “Glad to hear it, Sinitor,” replied madcap Letty, viciously mimicking the Senator’s unfortunate accent, “and, oh, Mr. Thorndyke, have you heard that Miss Maitland is engaged to Mr. Cathcart, the navy man, who is always hanging around her? It was announced this morning. Good-bye.” Letty flashed off, with a bicycle policeman after her full tilt. Thorndyke was near his lodgings. He did not know how he got there, but presently he found himself sitting in his arm-chair before the fire. Two hours later, when the maid-servant brought him a letter, he was sitting in the same position. The dusk was closing in, but he saw that the address was in Constance Maitland’s handwriting. Of course she had written to tell him of her engagement--it was kind of her so to break his calamity to him. The letter lay unopened for half an hour. Then, with a desperate courage, Thorndyke tore open the envelope. It was an invitation to dinner two weeks hence. It was unfeeling of her to do this. It was ignoble to forget that dear, lost past of which she had often spoken to him, and had allowed him freely to speak to her. It was impossible that he should accept; it was impossible that he should voluntarily meet Constance again, except for one last interview--that final leave-taking which is like the last farewell to the dying. And the sooner it was over the better. Thorndyke pulled himself together, and made up his mind to go to Constance at once. As he walked along the streets in the sharp air of the January twilight, everything looked unfamiliar to him. His interior world was destroyed--engulfed. Never more could he know hope or happiness; for him was only that stolid endurance of life which is like a prisoner’s endurance of his cell and his shackles. When he reached Constance Maitland’s door, she was at home, and he walked into the familiar drawing-room. She was sitting on the great, deep sofa, with no light but that of the blazing wood fire, although it was quite six o’clock. She rose as Thorndyke entered and greeted him gaily. Her meditations seemed to have been singularly happy. Thorndyke sat down on the sofa by her, and, as all men do under stress of feeling, put his pain into the fewest words possible. “I heard this afternoon,” he said, in a strange, cold voice, “of your engagement to Cathcart.” “Did you?” replied Constance, smiling brightly. “From whom, pray?” “From Miss Standiford.” “So that crazy Letty Standiford goes about announcing my engagement!” There was a pause, and then Thorndyke said, in the same strange, cold voice: “Cathcart is an admirable man.” “So everybody says,” brightly responded Constance. “Many persons have assured me of that.”