I am sorry," said Anne humbly. Mrs. Nunn waved apology aside.

"Of course you know that I shall never give my consent. Are you
determined to marry without it?"

"Yes."

[Illustration: "'I never wish to see you again'"]

"Your father all over. It was his expression of inhuman obstinacy in
your eyes that gave me even more of a shock than your words. Many a
time I endeavoured to gain his consent to your visiting London where
you would have seen the world and been sensibly married by this
time. Never under my earlier tutelage would you have made a fool of
yourself. And you have used Hunsdon abominably ill."

"I have given him no encouragement whatever----"

"Do not argue. My nerves will not stand it. Now this much I have the
right to demand: You are of age, I cannot prevent your marrying this
outcast, but you owe it to me as well as to yourself to return to
London, be presented to Her Majesty, and do a London season----"

"I never expect to leave the West Indies again, unless to be sure, Mr.
Warner should feel obliged to go to London himself. If you sail
to-morrow I shall go to Medora Ogilvy----"

"You have planned it all out!" shrieked Mrs. Nunn. Anne hastily poured
out another dose of sal volatile.

"I met Medora on my way home. She fancied how you would take it and
offered me shelter."

"I am gratified that my sense of propriety is so well known. You can
go to her. I proclaim to the world that I wash my hands of the
disgraceful affair by leaving to-morrow. Great God! What a victory for
Maria Hunsdon. I believe she plotted it all along."

Then she plunged into worldly argument, abuse of Warner, awful
pictures of the future. Finally Anne rose.

"I don't wish to do your nerves a real injury, so I shall leave you
until you are calmer," she said.

"I never wish to see you again."

CHAPTER XVIII

Mrs. Nunn, although she had talked with much heat, was still collected
enough to console herself with the reflection that Anne would be
terrified into sailing with her on the morrow; it was incomprehensible
to her well-regulated mind that any young lady in her niece's position
in life would consent to a scandal.

To do her justice, she had no wish to precipitate Anne into an act
which she believed must be fatal to her happiness, and she trusted to
further argument to persuade her to return to London if only for the
trousseau. With her niece and the poet on different sides of the
equator she would answer fo