And so I did it. Before going to bed I wrote a long letter to my father, giving him such details of my history during the past three years as I thought he would like to know. I hinted that if he or my mother would care for a visit from me I could go home for a few days. Then I waited. In a week I got my reply. It read: MY DEAR FRANK,—I am glad to receive your letter, but sorry that it should ever have been necessary for you to write it. That you should be doing well no one could be more thankful for than I. I have given your messages to your mother, and she wishes me to send you her love. I consider it my duty to add, however, that no messages can withdraw the sword you have thrust into her heart—and mine. Your affectionate father, EDWARD MELBURY. _CHAPTER XIII_ After that my work took me to Atlantic City, though not before I had had a number of meetings with Regina Barry, each of which, with one exception, took me by surprise. The exception was the first. Cantyre urged me so strongly to come with him to call on Mrs. Barry and her daughter that in the end I yielded. I found Mrs. Barry a charming invalid lady, keeping to the background and allowing her daughter to take all the initiative. From her as well as from Regina I got the reflex action of their liking for Jack. Mrs. Barry had seen him only once, but had preserved the memory of the pleasure which the meeting had given her. She repeated the statement, which had already grown familiar, that she thought Jack different from other men. Perhaps he was, though I could never see it. Perhaps she thought I was, myself, though she didn’t say so in words. In any case, the call was followed by an invitation to dinner, and not long after that Annette placed me next to Miss Barry at lunch. Mrs. Grace did the same, and so did Cantyre when he insisted on my joining a party he gave at a theater. Two or three other meetings were accidental, and if I say that in all of them Miss Barry herself made the advances it is only to emphasize my nervousness. I had no right to be meeting her; I had no business to be allowing her to talk to me and show that—well, that she didn’t dislike me. The revolver was still in my desk and I began to ask myself if it wasn’t my duty to make use of it. True, she had not accused me with her eyes, but she was in some ways doing worse. What was to be the end of it? I welcomed the work at Atlantic City, then, for more reasons than one. It took me away from New York; it kept me out of danger. Cantyre having confided to me the fact that his hopes were not dead, it left the field free to him. Never for a moment did he suspect that in my heart there was anything that could interfere with him; nor did he so much as dream that in hers....