'In the morning. Oh, that I had examined farther! Oh, that I had
never come home!'

'Mary! I cannot hear you say so.'

'You would have been spared all this. You were doing very well
without me--as you will--'

He cried out with deprecating horror.

'Louis!' she said, imploringly. 'Oh, Louis! do not make it harder
for me to do right.'

'Why--what? I don't understand! Your father has not so much as
heard how we stand together. He cannot be desiring you to give me
up.'

'He--he forbids me to enter on anything of the sort with you. I
don't know what made him think it possible, but he does. And--'
again Mary waited for the power of utterance, 'he orders me to come
out with Mrs. Willis, in the Valdivia, and it sails on the 12th of
December!'

'But Mary, Mary! you cannot be bound by this. It is only fair
towards him, towards all of us, to give him time to answer our
letters.'

Mary shook her head. 'The only condition, he says, on which he could
allow me to remain, would be if I were engaged to James Frost.'