"There was a great blunder. I did the thing accidentally which I had often
had in my heart to do, but which I am very certain would have been
impossible to me, had it not blundered out in a very miserable way. We
were speaking of my late absence, and I let her know that she had been the
cause of our dispute, the reason why I had left home."

"If you had planned to get 'no,' you could have taken no better way. What
girl worth having would take you after you had let her understand you
preferred a quarrel with your father, and an exile from your home, to a
marriage with her?"

"I would, for your sake, father, unsay the words if I could. Is there any
excuse, any--"

"There is no excuse but time and absence. Mary loves you; go away from her
sight and hearing until she forgets the insult you have given her. I don't
mean go away to the east or to the west coast, or even to London or Paris.
I mean go far away--to China or Russia; or, better still, to America. I
have friends in every large sea-port. You shall have all that my name and
money can do to make your absence happy--and women forgive! Yes, they
forget also; wipe the fault quite out, and believe again and again. God
bless them! You can write to Mary. Where a lover cannot go he can send,
and you need not blunder into insults when you write your words. You have
time to think and to rewrite. I shall have to part with you again, son
Allan. I feel it very bitterly."

Allan did not answer at once. He sat looking at his father's bent face and
heavy eyes. The blow had really aged him, for "'tis the heart holds up the
body." And to-night John Campbell's heart had failed him. He realized
fully that the absence and interval necessary to heal Mary's sense of