The letter itself was almost incoherent. She knew, she said, whom she had to thank for his departure. That vixen, that hussy, that stuck-up minx, who treated him like a dog and yet grudged him to another, who, God help her, loved him too well for her own good-- it was her ladyship she had to thank for spoiling everything and carrying him away. Was he not man enough to assert himself and leave a ship where he was put upon so awful? Let him ask her mightiness in two words, yes or no; and then when he had come down from the clouds and had learned the truth, poor silly fool--then let him come back to his Cassie, who loved him so dear, and who (if she did say it herself) had a heart worth fifty of his mistress and didn't need no powder to set off her complexion. It ended with a piteous appeal to his compassion and besought him to write to her from the nearest port. Frank sighed as he read it. Everything in the world seemed wrong and at cross-purposes. Those who had one thing invariably longed for something else, and there was no content or happiness or satisfaction anywhere. The better off were the acquiescent, who took the good and the bad with the same composure and found their only pleasure in their work. Best off of all were the dead whose sufferings were over. But after all it was sweet to be loved, even if one did not love back, and Frank was very tender with the little letter and put it carefully in his pocket-book. Yes, it was sweet to be loved. He said this over and over to himself, and wondered whether Florence felt the same to him as he did to Cassie. It seemed to explain so much. It seemed the key to her strange regard for him. He asked himself whether it could be true that she had wilfully ordered the ship to sea in order to prevent him going to the dance. The thought stirred him inexpressibly. What other explanation was there if this was not the one? And she had deserted the count, who was away in London on a day's business; deserted the Paquita at anchor in the roads! He was frightened at his own exultation. Suppose he were wrong in this surmise! Suppose it were just another of her unaccountable caprices!