in the morning, like the sane person you always
used to be."

Moya did not move an inch towards the opened door. Her tears were dry;
fires leapt in their stead.

"Is that all?"

"Unless you wish me to say more."

"What a fool you are, Theodore!"

"I'm afraid I distrust expert evidence."

"With all your wits you don't know the first thing about women!"

"You mean that you require driving like Paddy's pig? Oh, no, you don't,
Moya; go and sleep upon it."

"Sleep!"

It was one burst of all she felt, but only one.

"I'm afraid you won't," said Theodore, with more humanity. "Still it's
better to lose a night thinking things over, calmly and surely, as
you're very capable of doing, than to go another day with that ring upon
your finger."

Moya stared at him with eyes in which the fires were quenched, but not
by tears. She looked dazed.

"Do put your mind to it--your own sane mind!" her brother pleaded, with
more of wisdom than he had shown with her yet. "And--I don't want to be
hard--I never meant to be hard about this again--but God help you now to
the only proper and sensible decision!"

So was he beginning to send his juries about their vital business; and,
after all, Moya went to hers with as much docility as the twelve good
men and true.

Theodore was right about one thing. She must put her mind to it once and
for ever.

XII

AN ESCAPADE

She put her mind to it with characteristic thoroughness and honesty. Let
there be no mistake about Moya Bethune. She had faults of temper, and
faults of temperament, and as many miscellaneous faults as she was quick
to find in others; but this did not retard her from seeing them in
herself. She was a little spoilt; it is the almost inevitable defect of
the popular qualities. She had a good conceit of herself, and a naughty
tongue; she could not have belonged to that branch of the Bethunes and
quite escaped either. On the other hand, she was not without their
cardinal merits. There was, indeed, a brutal honesty in the breed; in
Moya it became a singular sincerity, not always pleasing to her friends,
but counterbalanced by the brightness and charm of her personality. She
was incapable of deceiving another; infinitely rarer, she was equally
incapable of deceiving herself; and could consider most things from more
standpoints than are accessible to most women, always provided that she
kept that cornerstone of all sane judgment, her temper. She had lost it
with