With a final frantic sniff she recovered her self-possession. “I'm a little f--fool,” said she. “I'm a brute,” said George. The bitter knowledge nerved each to better efforts. Calm reigned. Mary said, “Now you must listen and believe, dear.” “Let me have your hand, then.” She gave it with a little confiding, snuggling movement, and she continued: “You must believe, because I have thought it all out, whereas to you it is new. If I were a proper-spirited girl”--she rebuked his negation with a gesture--“if I were a proper-spirited girl I know I should leave Mrs. Chater at once--walk out and not care what I might suffer rather than stay where I had been insulted. Girls in books would do it. Oh, Georgie, this isn't books. This is real. I have been through it, and I would die sooner than face it again. You know--I have told you--what it is like being alone in cheap lodgings in London. Afraid of people, dear. Afraid of men, afraid of women. I couldn't, could not go through it again. And after all-don't you see?--if Mrs. Chater will let me stay, what have I to mind? I shall be better off than before, if anything. Mrs. Chater has always been--well, sharp. She may be a little worse--there's nothing in that. But this Bob Chater, since he came, has been the worst part of it. And as things are now, his mother watchful and he--what shall I say? angry, ashamed--why, he will pay no further attention to me. Come, am I not right? Isn't it best?--if only she will let me stay.” “I don't like it,” George said. “I don't like it.” “Dearest, nor I. But we can't, can't have what we like, and this will be the best of the nasty things. For so short a time, too. I'm quite bright about it. Am I not? Look at me.” George looked. Then he said, “All right, old girl.” She clapped her hands. “Only one thing more. You mustn't seek out--you mustn't touch the detestable Bob.” With the gloom of one relinquishing life's greatest prize George said, “I suppose I mustn't.” He added, “I tell you what, though. You mustn't interfere with this. I'll save it up for him. The day I take you out and marry you I'll pull him out--and pay him.” They parted upon the promises that Mary would write that evening to tell him of the result of her interview with Mrs. Chater, and that, in the especial circumstances, he might come to see her in the Park for just two minutes on Monday morning. And each went home, thinking, not of that portending interview with Mrs. Chater, but upon the love they had declared. CHAPTER IV. Events And Sentiment Mixed In A Letter. I. At ten o'clock that night Mary took up her pen.