Neil interrupted him. "She is a dream of the past. My new life has nothing to do with love--but with revenge." CHAPTER VIII. HERCULES AND OMPHALE. The next morning Neil Webster was conspicuous by his absence. His excuse was that he had been suddenly recalled to town on business. Mrs. Marshall was not deceived, and on the first available opportunity she drew her brother aside. "You have got rid of him, I see," she remarked, with evident satisfaction. "But Ruth will not submit quietly to all this. In the first place, she will refuse to believe that he has given her up; such a sacrifice is beyond the conception of a pretty girl. In the second----" "Wait a bit, Inez. Let us dispose of Number One first of all. Ruth will be convinced that Webster has given her up, for the simple reason that he has left a letter telling her so." "Ah! Then that is wily she has not come down to breakfast. I daresay she is weeping and storming in her room. I'll go and----" "No, no. Leave her alone. If you go and annoy her, there is no knowing what she will do. You know how headstrong-----" "You should have trained her better," said his sister. "All the training in the world will not tame our mother's blood in her--or in you, for the matter of that!" "I know I am strong-minded, if that is what you mean." "Well, if you like to call obstinacy strongmindedness, there is no need to argue. No doubt we both mean the same thing----" "With a difference," finished Mrs. Marshall. Jennie Brawn was loud in her lamentations when she came to hear of the Master's departure. She went at once to Ruth, and found that young lady far from tearful, pacing her bedroom in a towering rage. Jennie paused at the door; she saw that Ruth had a pencil-scribbled note in her hand. "What is the matter?" asked Miss Brawn, amazed at this exhibition of temper. Ruth pounced upon her. "Matter enough!" she cried, flourishing the letter. "Here is Neil gone to town in the most unexpected manner--without even an excuse to me! Read this, Jennie." "He says he is called away on business," said that young lady, when she had mastered the contents of the note. "Well, that is, no doubt, the truth!" "The truth! Pshaw! You don't know men, my dear. They tell lies in the most plausible manner. But Neil cannot deceive me! All I want to know is who the woman is!" Miss Brawn's freckled face grew crimson. "You have no right to say such a thing as that! It is not like a lady!" "I am a woman before I am a lady," cried Ruth. "And a jealous woman at that. Don't I know how all the creatures swarm after him just because he is handsome and famous! He has told me all sorts of things about the notes and the presents they send him, and----" "It was not nice of him to do that," remarked Jennie, for once blaming her idol. "Well,"--Ruth dropped into a chair fairly worn cut by her rage--"it was not his fault. I worried him into telling me everything. He did not want to--I must do him that justice."