The girl did not answer; she appeared altogether occupied in pouring out
her father's coffee.

He tasted it, and then he drank pretty well all of it; but he said, as he
put his cup down, "I don't know what they make this stuff of. I wish I
had a cup of good, honest American coffee."

"Oh, there's nothing like American food!" said his daughter, with so much
conciliation that he looked up sharply.

But whatever he might have been going to say was at least postponed by
the approach of a serving-maid, who brought a note to his daughter. She
blushed a little at sight of it, and then tore it open and read:

"I am going away from Carlsbad, for a fault of my own which forbids me to
look you in the face. If you wish to know the worst of me, ask Mrs.
March. I have no heart to tell you."

Agatha read these mystifying words of Burnamy's several times over in a
silent absorption with them which left her father to look after himself,
and he had poured out a second cup of coffee with his own hand, and was
reaching for the bread beside her before she came slowly back to a sense
of his presence.

"Oh, excuse me, papa," she said, and she gave him the butter. "Here's a
very strange letter from Mr. Burnamy, which I think you'd better see."
She held the note across the table to him, and watched his face as he
read it.