he dulness of monotony, now I'm to taste uncertainty
for a change. It may be very good for me; the vicar's wife says--
confidently!--that it will be. I can imagine myself pouring forth the
most inspiriting sentiments to my next-door neighbour, similarly bound,
but when _You_ write to me, _don't_ be inspiriting! I pray you, _don't_
make the best of it! Say that it's an unjust world; that brothers have
_no right_ to get married, and chuck their sisters; that it's
confoundedly hard lines, and that I'm a hardly used, unappreciated,
despised, abandoned angel and martyr. That will buck me up, and give me
courage to go on!

"But I want you to know one thing! If I could alter everything by a
wave of the hand, nothing would induce me to do it! To see the cloud
lifted, to watch blank eyes grow deep, and sweet, and satisfied again,--
that's a wonderful thing, and it would be a pigmy soul who did not
rejoice. So think of me as I am, _really_ happy, and truthfully
thankful, but naturally a little agitated as to personal plans. Here's
an excitement for you! Guess what I'll be, when you hear from me next!

"Superfluously,

"Katrine."

Cable message from Dorothea Middleton to Katrine Beverley:

"_October 10, 19--_.

"Come immediately year's visit. Cable dates."

Reply cable from Katrine Beverley to Dorothea Middleton:

"_October 11, 19--_.

"Regret quite impossible. Thanks."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Lebong, _October 23, 19--_.

"Dear Katrine,

"So you have refused Dorothea's invitation to come out to her for the
next year. She, poor girl, is surprised and hurt; I, on the contrary,
am neither one nor t'other. I knew it; felt it in my bones; could have
drafted beforehand your reply--and what's more, dear, I know precisely
by what train of argument the refusal came about!--I--Jim Blair--am the
bogie! You are saying to yourself: `A year ago I should have gone. It
would have seemed the obvious thing to go to Dorothea. Her
companionship, and the novelty of the surroundings would have been my
best medicine and cure, but now it's impossible! There's that man! ...
Behind the friendly import of his letters, there's something else, the
which I have strenuously ignored, but I have recognised it all the same.
If I went out now, leaving Martin married and content, he would
think,--that man would think,--imagine,--perhaps even (he's audacious
enough!)--_Expect_! ...