to-morrow at ten;" and we were off.

By the wretched kerosene lamp of the car, going down, I read my
letter, for it was for me: "I will not go to Europe, and I forbid you
to mention it again. I shall never, never forget that _I_ proposed it,
and that you--_accepted_ it. Come up to Lenox once more before you
go."

This was written in ink, and was sealed. It was the morning's note.
But across the envelope these words were written in pencil: "Go to
Europe with Fanny Meyrick, and come up to Lenox, both of you, when you
return."




CHAPTER VI.


I had a busy week of it in New York--copying out instructions, taking
notes of marriages and intermarriages in 1690, and writing each day a
long, pleading letter to Bessie. There was a double strain upon me:
all the arrangements for my client's claims, and in an undercurrent
the arguments to overcome Bessie's decision, went on in my brain side
by side.

I could not, I wrote to her, make the voyage without her. It would be
the shipwreck of all my new hopes. It was cruel in her to have raised
such hopes unless she was willing to fulfill them: it made the
separation all the harder. I could not and would not give up the plan.