"My George!" was his dismayed whisper to himself, "a duelist couldn't be prompter." He walked to the door, gazing at the superscription. "It feels like my letter sent back. Ah, well! that's just what it ought to be. Confound the women, all; I wonder how it feels for a man just to mind his own business and let them"--he rent the envelope--"mind--theirs!" He read the missive as he rode to the station. It wasn't very long, and it did seem to him a bit too formal; and yet it was so gravely sweet that he had to smooth the happiness off his face repeatedly, and finally stole a private laugh behind the hand that twisted his small mustache, as he fondly sighed. "Doggone your considerate little soul, you're just a hundred ton nicer and better than your father or anybody else is ever going to deserve!" But he read on: "For you remember, do you not? that I was free to speak of yours and papa's ambitions and plans for Widewood? And so I enclose a page or two of a letter just received from our Johanna at home, because it states things about Colonel Proudfit's new construction company which Cornelius seems to have told your mother's black girl, Jane. They may be pure inventions; but if so, they must be his, not hers, although I should never have thought he would be so reckless as to tell such things to such a person----" Etc. John unfolded the fragments of Johanna's letter with a condescending smile which began to fade before he had read five lines. A chill ran down his back, and then an angry flush mounted to his brow. There is a kind of man--Mr. Leggett was such a one, Samson was another--who will tell his own most valuable or dangerous secrets to any woman on whose conquest he is bent, if she only knows how to bid for them. And there are "Delijahs" who will break any confidence and risk any fortune, nay, their own lives, to show a rival she has been eclipsed. There are also women, even girls, who are of such pure eyes they cannot discern obliquity anywhere. And there are others just as pure--the lily's own heart isn't purer--who, nevertheless--but why waste time or type. In short, Johanna first, and then Barbara, had seen how easily Daphne Jane's tittle-tattle might be serious news to John March; which it certainly was if the dark cloud on his face was a true sign. He found Fannie on her train and well cared for by Johanna and the music-teacher. In the silence which promptly followed his greeting, these two moved aside and Fannie murmured eagerly, "What on earth's the matter?--Yes, there is, John; something's wrong; what is it? I saw you slip a letter into your pocket at the door. What does it mean?" "Why, Fannie--it means I've got to go straight back to Suez." She made a rapturous gesture. "And you're going on this train?" she whispered. "No." "Now, why not? John, you're foolish!--or else you think I am. You mustn't! You must go on this train. John, I--I want you to." She smiled up at his troubled gaze.