"Martin Sanders," said he, speaking quietly, but with one hand fastened upon the arm of his chair with a grasp which a horse could not have loosened, "if you are cowardly enough and small enough and paltry enough to go to a girl who is living in peace and comfort and ask her to marry you, when you know perfectly well that for years to come you could not give her a decent roof over her head, and that if her family wanted her to live like a Christian they would have to give her the money to do it with; and if you are fool enough not to know that when she sent you first to me and then to her mother she was tryin' to get rid of you without hurtin' your feelin's, why, then, I want you to get out of my sight, and the quicker the better. But if you are not so low down as that, go to your room and pack up your bag. The coach will start for the train at three o'clock, and it is now nearly half-past two; that will just give me time to write to Hendricks. Go!" Martin rose. Whatever happened afterwards, he must go now. It seemed to him as if the whole world had suddenly grown colder; as if he had been floating in a fog and had neared an iceberg. Could it be possible that she had spoken, as she had spoken, simply to get rid of him? He could not believe it. No one with such honest eyes could speak in that way; and yet he did not know what to believe. In any case, he would go away in the coach. He had spoken to Sadler, and now, whether he spoke to any one else or not, the sooner he left the better. When he came to take the coach, Peter Sadler, who had rolled himself to the front of the house, handed him the letter he had written. "I believe you are made of the right kind of stuff," he said, "although you've got a little mouldy by bein' lazy out there in the woods, but you're all right now; and what you've got to do is to go ahead with a will, and, take my word for it, you'll come out on top. Do you want any money? No? Very well, then, goodbye. You needn't trouble yourself to write to me, I'll hear about you from Hendricks; and I'd rather know what he thinks about you than what you think about yourself." "How little you know," thought Martin, as he entered the coach, "what I am or what I think about myself. As if my purpose could be changed by words of yours!" And he smiled a smile which would have done justice to Arthur Raybold. The chill had gone out of him; he was warm again. On the train he read the letter to Hendricks which Peter Sadler had given to him unsealed. It was a long letter, and he read it twice. Then he sat and gazed out of the window at the flying scenery for nearly half an hour, after which he read the letter again. Then he folded it up and put it into his pocket. "If she had given me the slightest reason to hope," he said to himself, "how easy it would be to tear this letter into scraps."