“What letter?” cried Mr. Lowther, staring almost fiercely at the shrinking girl. These sort of things so rapidly make themselves understood. Harcourt Lowther saw at once that something was wrong. “What letter?” “My last; the letter in which I told you that----Ah, how you will hate and despise me! But if you could know all, Harcourt, as you never can, you might excuse--you might forgive----” A torrent of sobs broke the sentence. “Oh, I think I understand,” said Harcourt Lowther, very quietly. “You have thrown me over, Miss Hillary.” She held out her clasped hands towards him with an imploring gesture; and then in broken sentences, in half-finished phrases, that were rendered incoherent by her sobs, she recapitulated something of her letter of explanation. Mr. Lowther’s face had blanched before this, and his lower lip quivered now and then with a little spasmodic action; but he listened very quietly to all Maude had to say. “I ought never to have expected anything else,” he answered, when she had finished her piteous attempt to explain and justify her conduct without revealing her father’s commercial secrets. “I don’t know that I ever _did_ expect anything else,” he went on very deliberately. “What has a penniless younger son to do among the children of Mammon? How can the earthen pot hope to sail down the stream with the big brazen vessels, and escape wreck and ruin? Don’t let there be any scene between us, Miss Hillary; I hate all domestic tragedy, and I think if my heart were breaking--and men’s hearts _have_ been known to break--I could take things quietly. You have grown tired of our long and apparently hopeless engagement, and you have promised to marry somebody else. It is all perfectly natural. May I know the name of my fortunate rival?” “His name is Tredethlyn--Francis Tredethlyn.” “A Cornishman,” added Harcourt Lowther,--“a fellow who has lately come into a great fortune?” “Yes. You know him, then?” “Intimately. I congratulate you on your choice, Miss Hillary. Francis Tredethlyn is a most excellent fellow. I have reason to speak well of him, for he was my servant for a year and a half out yonder in Van Diemen’s Land.” “Your servant?” “Yes. He was really the best of fellows; and in the art of brushing a coat or cleaning a pair of riding-boots was positively unrivalled.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXII. TAKING IT QUIETLY. “If you could know all, Harcourt, as you never can, you might excuse--you might forgive----”