But Robert Ferguson was silenced. When David spoke again, it was in gasps, and his words came thickly as if his tongue were numb: "What--what are we to do?" "Do? There is nothing to do, that I can see." "She must be taken away from him!" "Nobody knows where they are. But if I did know, I wouldn't lift my hand to get her away. She has made her bed--she can lie in it, so far as I am concerned." "But she didn't!" David groaned; "you don't understand. I am the one to curse, not Elizabeth." "What are you talking about?" "I did it." The older man looked at him with almost contemptuous incredulity. "My dear fellow, what is the use of denying facts? You can't make black white, can you? Day before yesterday you loved this--this," he seemed to search for some epithet; glanced at David, and said, almost meekly: "girl. Day before yesterday she expected to marry you. To-day she is the wife of another man. Have you committed any crime in the last three days which justifies that?" "Yes," David said, in a smothered voice, "I have." Then he handed back to the shamed and angry man the poor, pitiful little letter. "Don't you see? She says, 'David didn't want'"--he broke off, unable to speak. A moment later he added, "'E. _F_.' She isn't used to the--the other, yet," he said, again with that bewildered look. But Elizabeth's uncle was too absorbed in his own humiliation to see confession in that tragic initial. "What is that nonsense about your not wanting her?" "She thought so. She had reason to think so." "You had better explain yourself, David."