way; while you can give to mine everything it now wants. If these are
your only reasons I am sure of being able to remove them."

Madeleine looked as though she were not altogether pleased at this idea,
and became a little dogmatic. "It is no use our arguing on this subject,
Mr. Ratcliffe. You and I take very different views of life. I cannot
accept yours, and you could not practise on mine."

"Show me," said Ratcliffe, "a single example of such a divergence, and I
will accept your decision without another word."

Mrs. Lee hesitated and looked at him for an instant as though to be
quite sure that he was in earnest. There was an effrontery about this
challenge which surprised her, and if she did not check it on the spot,
there was no saying how much trouble it might give her. Then unlocking
the drawer of the writing-desk at her elbow, she took out Carrington's
letter and handed it to Mr. Ratcliffe.

"Here is such an example which has come to my knowledge very lately. I
meant to show it to you in any case, but I would rather have waited."

Ratcliffe took the letter which she handed to him, opened it
deliberately, looked at the signature, and read. He showed no sign of
surprise or disturbance. No one would have imagined that he had, from
the moment he saw Carrington's name, as precise a knowledge of what was
in this letter as though he had written it himself. His first sensation
was only one of anger that his projects had miscarried. How this had
happened he could not at once understand, for the idea that Sybil could
have a hand in it did not occur to him. He had made up his mind that
Sybil was a silly, frivolous girl, who counted for nothing in her
sister's actions. He had fallen into the usual masculine blunder of
mixing up smartness of intelligence with strength of character. Sybil,
without being a metaphysician, willed anything which she willed at all
with more energy than her sister did, who was worn out with the effort
of life. Mr. Ratcliffe missed this point, and was left to wonder who
it was that had crossed his path, and how Carrington had managed to
be present and absent, to get a good office in Mexico and to baulk his
schemes in Washington, at the same time. He had not given Carrington
credit for so much cleverness.

He was violently irritated at the check. Another day, he thought, would
have made him safe on this side; and possibly he was right. Had he once
succeeded in getting ever so slight a hold on Mrs