Elizabeth had more than the usual feminine dread of a telegraphic despatch, and she held the envelope in her hand for ten minutes before she could summon courage to open it. Only Clavering or McBean could be telegraphing her, and to hear from either meant a stab. At last she forced herself to tear the envelope open. It was a cablegram from London, and read:— “Your letter just received. Am sailing for America next Saturday. You must not, shall not, marry Clavering. Why did you not write me before? HUGH PELHAM.” Serena, who dreaded telegrams, went back to her own regions. Presently she returned and looked in the drawing–room door at Elizabeth. She was still–sitting by the open window in the half darkness, in the same position in which she had been half an hour before. The colored woman, who knew and had known all the time that Elizabeth was unhappy, went away and was troubled in mind. Half an hour later she returned. Elizabeth had changed her position slightly. She was resting her elbows on the window–sill, and her face was buried in her hands. “Miss ’Liz’beth,” said Serena, in her soft voice, and laying a hard, honest, sympathetic black hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder, “fur de Lord’s sake, doan’ ’stress yo’sef so. Doan’ yo’ marry dat Clavering man, nor any ‘urr man, ef you doan’ want to. Me and de Gin’l will teck keer on you. Doan’ yo’ trouble ‘bout nothin’ ’t all, honey.” “Oh, Serena,” cried Elizabeth, raising a pale, glorified, serene face and throwing her arms around Serena’s black neck, “I am the happiest person in the world! He is coming! He will start day after to–morrow. Oh, Serena, I am not distressed, I am not frightened any more!” “‘Tain’ dat Clavering man!” answered Serena. She alone of the whole world had suspected Clavering’s intentions. “No, no, no! It is another man—the man I—“ Elizabeth, without finishing the sentence, slipped out of Serena’s arms, upstairs to her own room, to be alone with her happiness. Although she had heard Clavering’s name spoken, it was near midnight before she really gave him a thought. Then she wrote him a few lines, very humble, very apologetic; but no man of sense on earth could fail to know, on reading them, that the woman who wrote them was fixed in her resolution not to marry him. And as in the case of the former letter, she watched for the passing postman in the early morning and dropped the letter at his feet. She summoned up courage to tell her father next day that Pelham was coming. “And I am sure,” she said, blushing and faltering, “all will be right between us, and he will explain all that seemed unkind in his conduct to me.” General Brandon was sure of it, too, just as he was sure everybody meant to do right on all occasions, and was as pleased at the notion of rehabilitating Pelham as if somebody had left him a block of stock in the Standard Oil Company.