Mrs. Boynton had behaved very much as Lewis Gordon had anticipated on hearing of George Keene's sudden death from cholera. She had wept honest tears over the dear lad, even while she could not help feeling happier than she had done for months; happier because of the flood which had come and gone, sweeping away with it all her difficulties, all her troubles. Yet it brought her one unavailing regret that she should so unnecessarily have put the bitter pain of hearing her confession into those last days, and that he should have gone down to his death not thinking ill of her exactly--the dear lad would never have done that--but hurt, disappointed, unhappy. She would have liked him to have seen a certain letter which lay in a drawer of her writing-table. A letter addressed, sealed, stamped, ready for sending, which she had only kept back one day. Only one; yet, but for that lucky chance it might have fallen into Dan's hands while George was ill and brought needless pain into another kind heart; for there was, thank heaven! no more need for humiliation and confession and promises of restitution. She had torn open the letter in order to read it again, and had been quite satisfied with its straightforward avowal of responsibility and firm intention, should difficulties arise, of taking the whole blame on herself. Then she had put it away again as a perpetual witness to her repentance and amendment. And surely these virtues had a right to forgiveness? One person, she knew, would do more than forgive if he knew all, and this conviction joined to the sense of loss which his prolonged absence from her environment always produced in Gwen Boynton made her think very tenderly of Dan, who wrote her such kind, sympathetic letters from Hodinuggur about the dear lad. He was not jealous, and full of evil imaginings like Lewis, whose temper had certainly not been improved by his visit to the plains. Though she did not consciously feel the need of something stronger than the cousinly affection she had for him, there is no doubt that the shock of her own lapses from strict honesty, joined to that of George Keene's sudden death, had made her disinclined for final decision; so the fact that Dan would, from pressure of work, be unable to get leave that year, and Lewis, from the same cause, was not likely to be urgent in love-making, suited her capitally. She would have time to recover her tone. To this end she proceeded, with a curious strength of purpose, to dismiss the nightmare of the past from her mind. It was over. What had been, had been. She would 'reach out to the things which were before'; no! not reach out! She would not again be premature; she would let fate and luck have their say to the full.