"I am not including in this letter a word of thanks for all that you have been to me. I feel that, were I in your place, thanks would seem an insult if the love that ought to wing them were lacking. "But do ask yourself honestly whether you really love me any more than I love you. What could your feeling be but just a sentiment, a figment of the imagination? You do not know me, or my tastes, or my temper, or my habits. How can you desire my daily companionship? Am I doing you a real wrong or only an imaginary one? "I write far more coldly than I feel. My heart is aching with sympathy for you. But if I were you sympathy would madden me, and I do not offer it. "I do ask forgiveness for my--what must I call it?--my involuntary inconstancy." At the back of her mind rankled the thought of all the money of his which she had accepted and spent. But she did not dare allude to it in the letter. She must await his answer to her confession. If she were to accept Denzil, and marry him, this money must be repaid. She wondered at herself now, to think how simply she had accepted it. So she wrote her letter, and went to bed with a mind slightly more at ease. And meanwhile, downstairs, Denzil and Aunt Bee sat together in the billiard-room, discussing the extraordinary revelation made by their protégée that day. Aunt Bee had guessed that there had been some kind of avowal on her nephew's part, and that it had been met by some corresponding confession of an unexpected nature on that of the girl. But she was far from being prepared for the surprising truth. Denzil put into her hands his brother's letter, which Rona had given him leave to show, and related to the astounded lady the true story of the escape of the young man and the girl from the power of Rankin Leigh and Levy. Miss Rawson sat for some time silent, taking it all in. The young canal bargeman, the handsome, unkempt tramp, whose tragic face had dwelt with her ever since her short interview with him--he was actually Felix Vanston, the black sheep--the boy whom she had last seen in riding breeches, mounted on his pony before the door of Normansgrave, and arrogantly declining to take off his hat to her at his mother's peevish bidding. "Why," she burst out, "he must have known me! Why did he not tell me who he was? But, of course, that was the last thing he would have been likely to do. He was not long out of prison--out of prison! Oh, think of it! He was actually starving, in despair, a suicide in all but actual accomplishment, and yet he was straining every nerve, defying the law, eluding pursuit, to put this unknown child into safe keeping! He is a hero, Denzil."