This is to say good-by--for the present. I’ve gone to New York to stop with Allie Kinnear and look about. I’ve no plans except not to come under father’s roof again. I thought he loved me. I’ve found that he hasn’t any heart to love anybody. He can’t bribe me into putting up with his tyranny. I’m afraid he’ll be cowardly enough to vent on you the rage for what’s all his own fault. But he’d do that if I stayed on. So, I don’t make it worse for you by going. Forgive me, mamma. I love you better than I ever did in my life. I’m so sorry to go--yet glad, too. BEATRICE. Mrs. Richmond laid the note calmly aside and resumed powdering her nose. She turned her head this way and that, to study effects from different lights. Apparently the note had made upon her no stronger impression than would have been made by the swift passage of a fly between her and the mirror. “She’s gone,” said Richmond, in a dazed way. “And I doubt if she’ll come back,” said his wife. “You must bring her back.” Mrs. Richmond was searching in the drawer for some toilet article. “I can do nothing with her,” said she absently. “You know that. _Where_ has Marthe put----” “You act as if you did not care,” snarled he. “And I don’t,” replied the wife indifferently. “She’s better off. I hope she’ll marry Wade.” “_Marry?_” sneered Richmond. “Do you suppose he’d marry her when he finds out that she has cut herself off?” “Maybe so,” replied Mrs. Richmond, with intent to infuriate. Richmond, with the wounds to his vanity inflicted by Roger open again and burning and bleeding, gave a kind of howl of rage. “Don’t be a fool!” he shouted. “I say he will not marry her!” “Then you ought to be satisfied,” said his wife pleasantly. “Satisfied?” Richmond, white with rage, shook his hand in her very face. “Satisfied? With the only one of my family that was worth while gone--you talk about my being _satisfied_!” “Then why did you drive her out?” inquired she coldly. Richmond flung out his arms in a vague, wild gesture, and rushed to the open window. “You might go to Kinnear’s and talk with her,” suggested his wife. “Say what?” demanded Richmond over his shoulder. “How should I know?” He wheeled round. “Are you on her side or on mine?” “Oh, I’m just a fool,” said Lucy. Richmond’s scowl at her changed to a scowl into vacancy. The scowl faded into a mere stare. Suddenly he burst out in a voice from which grief had washed every trace of anger: “I’ve got to have her back! I’ve got to have her back.” Mrs. Richmond’s expression of amazement slowly yielded to one of sullen jealousy. “That’s right,” sneered she. “Go and apologize to her. Knuckle down to her.”