"She must be a strange girl, Dick, to fall in love with anybody else when you were around." "Well, I don't know. At any rate, she did fall in love, and she came here of her own motion to break the engagement." "I wonder how she will feel when she gets the letter?" "Well, dearest, I thought, under the circumstances, I wouldn't give it to her." "Not give it to her?" cried the girl, with sudden promptness and decision; "indeed you will give her that letter, sir! She shall know you loved me before she released you, and that you were going to break the engagement yourself. I won't have her think for a moment that I just got you because she threw you over. Not give her the letter, indeed!" "Well, Emily," said Revere, deprecatingly, greatly surprised at this outburst; "you see I thought I would save her the--er--humiliation, you know, of being rejected by a man." "And you will inflict on me, Richard Revere, the humiliation of letting her think that I only have you because she didn't want you! That I----" furiously. "Now, my dear; you know perfectly well that's different. If she has half an eye, as soon as she sees us together, she will know that I love you desperately as I never loved her. She is a bright girl." "Bright! I don't think so!" contemptuously. "She is very stupid to give you up; but I'm glad she is----" "I should think she would be awfully sorry to know that a man had broken his engagement with her, and that's why I----" "Mr. Revere, I believe you are sorry yourself, after all! I believe you are half in love with her still!" reproachfully. "Now, Emily, you know that's nonsense. Why, I felt so joyful when she said she was in love with that Van Dorn, that I had to turn away my face for fear she would see how enraptured I was." "Why didn't you tell her frankly, honestly, right then, that you were pleased with it; that you were engaged to me; that you had broken the engagement before? It was your duty,--your duty to me. You failed me; you failed me before. I can't trust you." Most unkindly and unjustly spoken words were these, indeed. "Why, Emily, my dear child----" "I'm not a child, and don't you call me one! I am a woman, though you treat me like a child, and I'm not dear to you, either! You are sacrificing me to that other girl," bitterly, tearfully, but with great determination. Revere was nonplussed by the revelation of these essentially feminine characteristics in Emily's otherwise charming personality. He did not know what to do or how to answer her in his bewilderment. "Are you going to give her that letter or not?" she asked, insistently, after a pause which he appeared unable to break unaided. "Well," he said at last, but very reluctantly, "I suppose if you insist upon it I must; but frankly, I think it would be better not to do so. I do not believe it is right." "Is there something in it you don't want me to know?" suspiciously.