and
to avoid, at all costs, wounding one to whom they had sworn to be true.
Thus far their steadfastness carried them, but not beyond. They could
part from their loved ones, and they did; but they could not leave them
without a word. Each wrote, after leaving Scotland and Switzerland
respectively, a few lines of adieu, confessing the love they felt, but
with resolute sadness saying farewell forever. They belonged to another.

It was the answers that Mary and John were reading when Miss Bussey
discovered them.

Mary's ran:

"MY DEAR MISS TRAVERS: I have received your letter. I can't tell you
what it means to me. You say all must be over between us. Don't be
offended--but I won't say that yet. It can't be your duty to marry a
man you don't love. You forbid me to write or come to you; and you ask
only for a word of good-by. I won't say good-by. I'll say _Au
revoir--au revoir_, my darling."

"Charlie."

"Burn this."

This was John's:

"MY DEAR MR. ASHFORTH: What am I to say to you? Oh, why, why didn't you
tell me before? I oughtn't to say that, but it is too late to conceal
anything from you. Yes, you are right. It must be good-by. Yes, I will
try to forget you. But oh, John, it's very, very, very difficult. I
don't know how to sign this--so I won't. You'll know who it comes from,
won't you? Good-by. Burn this."

These letters, no doubt, make it plain that there had been at least a
momentary weakness both in Mary and in John; but in a true and
charitable view their conduct in rising superior to temptation finally
was all the more remarkable and praiseworthy. They had indeed, for the
time, been carried away. Even now Mary found it hard not to make
allowances for herself, little as she was prone to weakness when she
thought of the impetuous _abandon_ and conquering whirl with which
Charlie Ellerton had wooed her; and John confessed that flight alone, a
hasty flight from Interlaken after a certain evening spent in gazing at
the Jungfrau, had saved him from casting everything to the winds and
yielding to the slavery of Dora Bellairs's sunny smiles and charming
coquetries. He had always thought that that sort of girl had no
attractions for him, just as Mary had despised 'butterfly-men' like
Charlie Ellerton. Well, they were wrong. The only comfort was that
shallow natures felt these sorrows less; it would have broken Mary's
heart (thought John), or John's (thought Mary), but Dora and Charlie
would soon find