Muriel waited until the door was closed, then she went and looked at the letters. She knew the handwriting; she hungered for a sight of any words from him; and she looked at it now as if she was looking at it for the last time. Then she sat down where Edith le Mentier had been sitting, and tore them up one by one and threw them into the fire. Muriel had scarcely finished when Sir Arthur came into the room. “Muriel!” he cried in a tone of justifiable displeasure, “I have told you before never to put paper into the fire. Do you know you endanger our lives by your carelessness? Letters should be put into the waste-paper basket, not made bonfires of! Have you got your trunks packed, child, and all your arrangements made? We start in another hour.” “Uncle Arthur,” said Muriel quietly, “you will think me very strange, I know, and very wilful, but I’m not going to start to-day. I’m going back to the club to-night. I—I don’t think I am feeling very well.” Expression for the most part is a distinctly limited faculty, and those who carry it to its bounds in the ordinary occurrence of life find nothing left to say when the occasion transcends their experience. Sir Arthur Dallerton was dumb; he made several efforts to speak—he put his hand to his heart—he stared at the ceiling—he was almost startled into a prayer—finally he gasped out:— “You wicked girl! Send my man to me,” and closed his eyes. Muriel escaped. He had not tried to combat her decision; he was in fact very much relieved not to have to go. He had only submitted to the mid-winter journey because it was expected of him—but he was surprised, horribly surprised. There is something very shocking to an Englishman in any sudden change: to Sir Arthur Dallerton it amounted to a crime. Muriel had surprised him, and he could not forgive her.