He was beginning to comfort her now. His own feelings were under control, and he told her how, though it would be right for her to send the letter as she promised, Lawrence would not consent. He would come at once to seek an explanation, and by some means the truth would come out, and they be happy yet. “You are my good angel, Olly,” said Mildred. “You always know just what to say, and it is strange you do, seeing you never loved any one as I do Lawrence Thornton.” And Mildred’s snowy fingers parted his light-brown hair, all unconscious that their very touch was torture to the young man. “I am going now, and my heart is a great deal lighter than when I first came in,” she said, and pressing her lips to his forehead she went down the stairs and out into the moonlight, not singing, not dancing, not running, but with a quicker movement than when she came, for there was stealing over her a quiet hopelessness that, as Oliver had said, all would yet be well. Monday morning came, and with a throbbing heart, and fingers which almost refused to do their office, she wrote to Lawrence Thornton: “I cannot be your wife,—neither can I give you any reason. MILDRED.” With swimming eyes she read the cold, brief lines, and then, as she reflected that in a moment of desperation Lawrence might offer himself to Lilian, and so be lost to her forever, she laid her head upon the table and moaned: “I cannot, cannot send it.” “Yes you can, Gipsy, be brave,” came from the Judge, who for a moment had been standing behind her. “Show Bobum that you have pluck.” But Mildred cared more for Lawrence Thornton than for _pluck_, and she continued weeping bitterly, while the Judge placed the letter in the envelope, thinking to himself: “It’s all-fired hard, I s’pose, but hanged if she shall have him, after Bob said what he did. I’ll buy her a set of diamonds though, see if I don’t, and next winter she shall have some five hundred dollar furs. I’ll show Bob Thornton whether I mean to give her a few thousands or not, the reprobate!” And finishing up his soliloquy with a thought of the mortgages he was going to foreclose, he sealed the letter, jammed it into his pocket, and passing his great hand caressingly over the bowed head upon the table, hurried away to the post-office. [Illustration: Flowers] CHAPTER XIV. WHAT FOLLOWED. “I wonder if the Western mail is in yet,” and Geraldine Veille glanced carelessly up at the clock ticking upon the marble mantel, peered sideways at the young man reading upon the sofa, and then resumed her crocheting. “I was just thinking the same,” returned Lawrence, folding up his paper and consulting his watch. “I suppose father comes in this train. I wonder what took him to Albany?”