There was no reply and after waiting an instant he roused himself: “Ah, yes, I had forgotten! She has returned home. Poor girl! I sympathise with her in her overwhelming sympathy for me. So I am to be lame for life! ’Tis a sad, a heavy misfortune! Ah, mother, I am glad you have come in. Please draw aside the curtains and let in the light. It is so gloomy. I have slept well and feel refreshed. Have you heard from Clara?” “Her footman has just left this note for you, Leslie,” said Mrs. Pierpoint, putting aside the curtains. “Give it me, mother.” Leslie hastily broke the seal, opened it, and ere he began to read pressed his lips to her name at the close. Have the kindness to turn back and re-read the letter, dear reader, with him, that you may enter into Leslie’s feelings as he perused it. He read to its close without betraying the least emotion in his expressive face. But when he had come to the end he slowly crushed the letter up in his left hand till the nails of the fingers met through it into the flesh. His teeth became set and his whole face stern and as rigid as marble. His alarmed mother caught the fearful expression of his fixed eyes and flew to him. He waived her away with a quiet movement of the hand. “No, no, do not touch me, mother! I am well, very well;” he said hoarsely. “No, dearest child, you are very ill. I will ring for assistance.” “No—give me a pen—ink—paper too! I would write.” “The Doctors have forbidden it.” “But one—one line, dear mother!” Mrs. Pierpoint looked at him a moment with hesitation and then silently obeyed. Not a muscle of Leslie’s face moved, but it was pale, very pale, as he took the pen in his fingers. His hand was steady while he wrote the following brief reply:— “_Mr. Leslie Pierpoint’s compliments to Miss Clayton—he assures her it is far, far from his wish, to place an obstacle in the way of her happiness._ “_Thursday morning,_ “_No. 27— South Sixth St._” He directed and despatched it without a word or look of emotion; and when the servant had left the room he calmly turned to his surprised mother, whose looks were fixed upon him full of anxious inquiry, smiled faintly upon her and said, at the same time offering her Clara’s crushed letter, “Dearest mother, you would ask me what this means? Read this—it will explain—_it is eloquent!_ Read it and be so good as never to mention the subject of it to me again.” Mrs. Pierpoint perused it in silence and with tears of sorrow and sympathy for him whose manly heart Clara Clayton had crushed as he had crushed the letter. The mother and the son exchanged glances and the letter was folded up and laid aside. From that hour Leslie Pierpoint never breathed the name of Clara, never looked upon a woman but with secret dislike and contempt.