The third letter was a short one, also written by Gordon Frere, and addressed to Mr. Guyon. It was a straightforward, manly letter, in which the writer acknowledged his unworthiness of the blessing he asked with more sincerity than such matter-of-course acknowledgments usually convey, and set forth his modest confidence in Miss Guyon's consent to become his wife. Gordon stated the prospects then opening upon him; and finally, in accordance with his father's wish, formally requested Mr. Guyon's permission to address his daughter. (The old-fashioned punctilio of the good rector had helped the unscrupulous schemer considerably, as the virtues of good men are not seldom found to aid the devices of knaves.) The fourth letter, which was endorsed with the words "shown to R S.," and was the last contained in the packet, was in Mr. Guyon's handwriting. As his daughter read it, all the truth revealed itself to her; all the baseness of which she had been the victim stood in its revolting nakedness before her eyes. As she read the flowery sentences in which Mr. Guyon condoled with his "dear young friend," and pitied himself for being the medium of so painful a communication, a grasp seemed to tighten upon her throat and to press down her heart: still she read on,--read that her father had written, on her behalf, to the effect that, feeling she had been so unfortunate as to have conveyed a totally unfounded impression to Mr. Frere, she had shrunk from a personal explanation, and felt sure that, when Mr. Frere should know that she was engaged to Mr. Streightley, and their marriage was to take place very shortly, he would excuse her making a written one;--read that, though Mr. Guyon hoped their future friendship would be quite unaltered, he trusted Mr. Frere would abstain from any communication, either personal or by letter, for the present, as such would agitate Miss Guyon, and cause much unpleasantness; and that she and her father united in every good wish for Mr. Frere's future welfare. Katharine read this terrible letter over many times--not before she understood and believed the revelation it made, but before she got the reality of it into her mind, before it connected itself with her own self, and showed her the past and present laid utterly waste. It was her father who had done this,--her father! who had been kind to her, too, after a fashion--her father! Ay, _and her husband!_