and hesitant. "I was sent out to report to Miss Rose."

"But you, yourself, for whom did you suppose it?"

"I ain't certain I did any supposing. Mr. Gerard began it after Mr. Rose
had been with him, yesterday, and it took from then till to-night to
finish."

"It is _mine_," Isabel reiterated passionately.

The scene was utterly impossible, not to be prolonged. It was the
strong, cool determination inherited from Thomas Rose that held Flavia
equal to the demands of her mother's bequeathment of reticent pride.

"Pray give the letter to my cousin," she requested, her calm never more
perfect. "I am sorry to have confused so simple a matter. She will of
course recognize for which of us it is intended."

But she meant to see the letter. Even as she watched Isabel snatch the
surrendered missive, Flavia told herself that this sentence of error
could not be accepted without sight of the letter. Moving with
deliberate stateliness, she crossed to a chair near a small table and
sat down, taking up a book. She was conscious that Rupert watched her,
and she would make no sign that might constitute a self-betrayal when
recounted to Gerard if she were indeed so pitifully wrong and he had
from the first chosen her cousin. What she was not in the least aware
of, was the inevitable impression made upon the mechanician by the
dazzling little room and her central figure of gold upon gold and
pearl-and-amber, and by her still, colorless face set in all this sheen
and lustre. Had he been as dull as he really was acute, this scene could
not have been made casual to him.

Isabel's shaking fingers shredded the envelope in extracting the sheet
of paper, her eyes scanned the page avidly. The result was
unanticipated; there was a sharp cry, an instant of indecision, then as
savagely as she had claimed the letter she sprang to thrust it into the
startled Flavia's lap.

"I can't do it! Flavia, I can't see him--I can't bear it! Tell him
no--to go away--it's all over, now."

The desperate terror and dread of the cry charged the atmosphere of the
room with vibrant intensity. Flavia caught the letter.

"I am to read this?" she demanded.

"Yes; read it, help me."

Isabel had seen and still claimed as hers the message. Yes, and had
expected it, so that there must have been other communication between
her and the sender. The conviction of her own utter mistake struck
Flavia down with a force that crushed reason under feeling. She was
physic