"I'm very sorry, mamma; but----" "Give it to me." "Very well; I shall have to write another." "Do you mean to defy me, Laura?" Laura made no answer. Mrs. Pocklington opened and read the letter. "DEAR MR. NESTON," (it ran)-- "I want you to know that I do not believe a single word of what they are saying. I am very sorry for poor Mrs. Witt, and I think you have acted _splendidly_. Isn't it charming weather? Riding in the park in the morning is a positive delight. "With kindest regards, "Yours very sincerely, "LAURA F. POCKLINGTON." Mrs. Pocklington gasped. The note was little better than an assignation! "I shall show this to your father," she said, and swept out of the room. Laura sat down and wrote an exact copy of the offending document, addressed it, stamped it, and put it in her pocket. Then, with ostentatious calmness, she took up "Jack's Darling," and appeared to become immersed in it. Mrs. Pocklington found it hard to make her husband appreciate the situation; indeed, she had scarcely risen to it herself. Everybody talks of heredity in these days: the Pocklingtons, both people of resolute will, had the opportunity of studying its working in their own daughter. The result was fierce anger in Mrs. Pocklington, mingled anger and admiration in her husband, perplexity in both. Laura's position was simple and well defined. By coercion and imprisonment she might, she admitted, be prevented sending her letter and receiving a reply, but by no other means. Appeals to duty were met by appeals to justice; she parried entreaty by counter-entreaty, reproofs by protestations of respect, orders by silence. What was to be done? Laura was too old, and the world was too old, for violent remedies. Intercepting correspondence meant exposure to the household. The revolt was appalling, absurd, unnatural; but it was also, as Mr. Pocklington admitted, "infernally awkward." Laura realised that its awkwardness was her strength, and, having in vain invited actual physical restraint, in its absence walked out and posted her letter. Then Mrs. Pocklington acted. At a day's notice she broke up her establishment for the season, and carried her daughter off with her. She gave no address save to her husband. Laura was not allowed to know whither she was being taken. She was, as she bitterly said, "spirited away" by the continental mail, and all the communications cut. Only, just as the brougham was starting, when the last box was on, and Mr. Pocklington, having spoken his final word of exhortation, was waving good-bye from the steps, Laura jumped out, crossed the road, and dropped a note into a pillar-box. "It is only," she remarked, resuming her seat, "to tell Mr. Neston that I can't give him any address at present." What, asked Mrs. Pocklington of her troubled mind, were you to do with a girl like that? CHAPTER XVIII. GEORGE NEARLY GOES TO BRIGHTON.