There was something quieting and strengthening in the mere resolve. Trust has its own special delight,--a far subtler and sweeter thing than any satisfaction of the understanding. Carice's face was almost bright, as she turned to go home. A folded paper lay directly in her path. Mechanically she picked it up; mechanically she read it almost through, before her mind, busy with other thoughts, began, even vaguely, to grasp its meaning. It ran thus:-- "P.S. I cannot understand how my foolish engagement to Astra Lyte should have leaked out. With all due respect for your opinion, I cannot think of fulfilling it; indeed, I wrote to break it off immediately after coming home. I should never have entered into it, but for a mistaken notion that it would advance my interests in a certain quarter. Finding that it was likely to do just the opposite, there was nothing for it but to take the shortest cut out of the scrape. Never fear for Astra, she does not belong to the Ophelia order of women, she has pride and pluck enough to carry her through a worse disappointment; besides, hearts are never broken except in novels and plays. I am much obliged to her for leaving Berganton, the affair will blow over the sooner. In order to give it time to do so, I think I shall postpone my return until after Christmas. "Yours, B.A." Twice did Carice read the paper's contents through, before she began to understand what it was, and whence it came. She had seen Bergan's handwriting a few times, in notes addressed to her mother; and she remembered enough of its peculiarities to recognize them in the lines before her, as soon as her mind was able to grasp the fact that, in this heartless production, she beheld the postscript which she had seen in Doctor Remy's hand, and which he had doubtless dropped accidentally, while replacing his papers in his pocket-book. That it should have been deliberately forged, and designedly put in her way--a sort of moral torpedo, loaded with mischief--was a depth of wickedness, of which, in her innocence, she could never have conceived. She could scarcely make herself comprehend the evil tenor of the words before her eyes. She read them over again, with a feeling that either their form or their purport must change, if she only studied them carefully enough; it was impossible that she had read them aright. No, they would not alter. Her efforts only served to brand them more deeply on her mind. She looked up, at last, with a kind of wonder that the earth was still firm under her feet, and the sky's arch entire above her head. It would have seemed more in keeping to have beheld the universe crashing backward into chaos.