Awhile she stood thus. Then all at once the colour fled from her face, and left it pallid, cold, rigid. She pressed her hand once or twice across her brow, and then, looking at him intently for a few moments, said, in a quiet, weary voice: "I am ill. Leave me; but come to me soon again. In an hour--half-an-hour. I did not mean what I said. Pray leave me, and come to me soon. I shall be here. I am confused." Without speaking, and scarcely believing the words he heard, he stole from the room. She sat down on a couch and covered her face with her hands. "Wait," she said softly to herself. "There is something I must do--something I have forgotten. Oh, I know! He is an honourable gentleman, and must not be disregarded." She went over to a table, found writing materials, sat down, and wrote: "Dear Mr. Paulton, "I got your note this morning. I told you the first time you did me the honour of offering me marriage that there was no hope. I am sorry to say I am of the same mind still. You will forget and forgive me in time. I shall never forget your kindness to me in my distress. "Yours sincerely, "Marion Butler." She read the note over and over again from top to bottom. Something in the look of it did not please her, but she could not think of anything better to say. She had received a note from him that morning, asking her to grant him another interview. He had proposed to her a week ago. She had told him plainly she would not marry him. He had begged that he might be allowed to call again. She said it was quite useless. He craved another interview, and she gave way, on the understanding no hope was to be based on the permission. He had come again, and again had been refused. And now he was asking for a third chance. She would not give it to him. It would be worse than useless under the circumstances. There was something wrong with this note, but it must serve, as Tom Blake was waiting. She put the letter in an envelope, addressed it to Alfred at the "Strand Hotel," Kilcash, rang the bell, and sent a servant off with it. When it was gone she said: "I must go now and meet Tom. He said he'd be---- Where's this he said he'd be? Oh, I know! By the corner of the wood on the Bandon Road. I'll put on the white muslin Tom likes. If Mr. Paulton should come they must say I am out." Alfred Paulton got the note, and although he could not understand the signature--it was no doubt the result of a lapse of memory, in which she went back for a moment to her girlish days--he knew his dismissal was final. That day he set off for London, and arrived in time to see Madge married to his old friend, Jerry O'Brien, who was secretly delighted at the failure of Alfred's suit. While Jerry was on his honeymoon he got a letter from his old friend and solicitor, the postscript of which gave him the latest news of Mrs. Davenport: the doctors had pronounced her hopelessly insane.