I had a premonition of this as I drove along Ochre Point Avenue that night. It helped me to the joy of liberty, to rightness of heart. As I threw the things into my suit-case I could have sung. Séraphine, who was up, waiting for her mistress, being also my friend, promised to finish my packing after I had gone, so that Mrs. Rossiter would have nothing to do but send my boxes after me. It couldn't have been half an hour after my arrival at the house before I was ready to drive away again. I was in the down-stairs hall, going out to the motor, when a great black form appeared in the doorway. My knees shook under me; my happiness came down like a shot bird. Mr. Brokenshire advanced and stood under the many-colored Oriental hall lantern. I clung for support to the pilaster that finished the balustrade of the stairway. There was gentleness in his voice, in spite of its whip-lash abruptness. "Where are you going?" I could hardly reply, my heart pounded with such fright. "To--to New York, sir." "What for?" "Be-because," I faltered. "I want to--to get away." "Why do you want to get away?" "For--for every reason." "But suppose I don't want you to go?" "I should still have to be gone." He said in a hoarse whisper: "I want you to stay--and--and marry Hugh." I clasped my hands. "Oh, but how can I?" "He's willing to forget what you've said--what my daughter Ethel has said; and I'm willing to forget it, too." "Do you mean as to my being in love with some one else? But I am." "Not more than you were at the beginning of the evening. You were willing to marry him then." "But he didn't know then what he's had to learn since. I hoped to have kept it from him always. I may have been wrong--I suppose I was; but I had nothing but good motives." There was a strange drop in his voice as he said, "I know you hadn't." I couldn't help taking a step nearer him. "Oh, do you? Then I'm so glad. I thought--" He turned slightly away from me, toward a huge ugly fish in a glass case, which Mr. Rossiter believed to be a proof of his sportsmanship and an ornament to the hall. "I've had great trials," he said, after a pause--"great trials!" [Illustration: "I'VE HAD GREAT TRIALS . . . I'VE ALWAYS BEEN MISJUDGED. . . . THEY'VE PUT ME DOWN AS HARD AND PROUD"] "I know," I agreed, softly. He walked toward the fish and seemed to be studying it. "They've--they've--broken me down." "Oh, don't say that, sir!" "It's true." His finger outlined the fish's skeleton from head to tail. "The things I said to-night--" He seemed hung up there. He traced the fish's skeleton back from tail to head. "Have we been unkind to you?" he demanded, suddenly, wheeling round in my direction. I thought it best to speak quite truthfully. "Not unkind, sir--exactly." "But what did Ethel mean? She said we'd been brutes to you. Is that true?" "No, sir; not in my sense. I haven't felt it." He tapped his foot with the old imperiousness. "Then--what?"