“ALISTAIR STUART.” This letter made no difference to Hero whatever. She guessed that her father had influenced Alistair to write it, but she forbore to speak to him on the subject. Her mind was made up, and so was his, and further discussion between them would only make them both unhappy. She carried the letter to Alistair’s mother, who had been left wondering and dismayed by his unexplained departure, and the two women who loved Alistair embraced and shed some tears over it. “He will come back to you if you will wait for him,” the mother pleaded. The language of the letter was outside her comprehension, but she thought she knew what was in Alistair’s heart. “He has drawn back because he is afraid he cannot make you a good husband. But he has not really given you up.” “I have not given him up, at all events,” Hero said quietly. The Duchess felt greatly comforted. Only her old misgiving came back to her. “Suppose he means to marry that woman?” she whispered. “Then I shall look upon his wife as my sister. I shall try to make a friend of her for his sake, and I think I shall succeed. After all, perhaps I have no right to take her place.” The mother was daunted by this answer. She could not bear to admit that Molly Finucane had any rights where Alistair was concerned. She would have liked to see Hero more jealous. The news of the marriage reached them only through the newspaper. Alistair had thought it would be affectation to try to soften the blow. It was a dreadful blow to the Duchess, though she had seen it coming. She sank under it, and aged visibly. Hero tried in vain to administer consolation. “I think Alistair has acted nobly,” she declared. “I am proud of him. And I should be proud of myself if I thought he had done it to please me.” The poor Duchess began to fear that Hero, instead of an ally, was going to prove a traitor. She could see in her son’s action nothing but desperation. She had her own settled view as to what would constitute happiness for her boy, and she wanted to see him happy. Hero wrote in the same courageous strain to Alistair himself. And she enclosed a short note to Molly, asking permission as a cordial friend of Lord Alistair’s to congratulate her on a step which she believed and hoped would be for the happiness of them both. When Molly got the letter, she was puzzled and rather alarmed. “Is Miss Vanbrugh the girl your mother wanted you to marry?” she asked her husband. “Yes. But you see I married you instead,” was all Alistair said in reply. And Molly did not dare to question him further. She answered Hero’s letter as ungraciously as she could, though her new sense of dignity kept her within the bounds of formal civility. She hoped that this would be the end of all intercourse in that quarter.