well in hand to-day.
She might be as provoking as she pleased, but she should not provoke
him to betray himself as he had done last night. He detested himself
for that weak outbreak of passion.

"Have you arranged with my mother for my leaving home?" inquired Vixen.

"Yes, it is all settled."

"Then I'll write at once to Miss McCroke. I know she will leave the
people she is with to travel with me."

"Miss McCroke has nothing to do with the question. You roaming about
the world with a superannuated governess would be too preposterous. I
am going to take you to Jersey by this evening's boat. I have an aunt
living there who has a fine old manor house, and who will be happy to
take charge of you. She is a maiden lady, a woman of superior
cultivation, who devotes herself wholly to intellectual pursuits. Her
refining influence will be valuable to you. The island is lovely, the
climate delicious. You could not be better off than you will be at Les
Tourelles."

"I am not going to Jersey, and I am not going to your intellectual
aunt," said Vixen resolutely.

"I beg your pardon, you are going, and immediately. Your mother and I
have settled the matter between us. You have expressed a wish to leave
home, and you will be pleased to go where we think proper. You had
better tell Phoebe to pack your trunks. We shall leave here at ten
o'clock in the evening. The boat starts from Southampton at midnight."

Vixen felt herself conquered. She had stated her wish, and it was
granted; not in the mode and manner she had desired; but perhaps she
ought to be grateful for release from a home that had become loathsome
to her, and not take objection to details in the scheme of her exile.
To go away, quite away, and immediately, was the grand point. To fly
before she saw Rorie again.

"Heaven knows how weak I might be if he were to talk to me again as he
talked last night!" she said to herself. "I might not be able to bear
it a second time. Oh Rorie, if you knew what it cost me to counsel you
wisely, to bid you do your duty; when the vision of a happy life with
you was smiling at me all the time, when the warm grasp of your dear
hand made my heart thrill with joy, what a heroine you would think me!
And yet nobody will ever give me credit for heroism; and I shall be
remembered only as a self-willed young woman, who was troublesome to
her relations, and had to be sent away from home."

She was thinking this while she sat in her father's ch