"No, but he has written."

"And you think he--" the girl had her arms around her friend's neck
again, and concealed her blushing face don't make me say it, McDonald."

"Yes, dear, I am sure--I know he does."

There was a little quiver in her form, but it was not of agony; then she
put her hands on the shoulders of her governess, and, looking in her
eyes, said:

"When you did see him, how did he look--how did he look?--pretty sad?"

"How could he help it?"

"The dear! But was he well?"

"Splendidly, so he said. Like his old self."

"Tell me," said the girl.

And Miss McDonald went into delightful details, how he looked, how he
walked, how his voice sounded, how he talked, how melancholy he was, and
how full of determination he was, his eyes were so kindly, and his smile
was never so sweet as now when there was sadness in it.

"It is very long since," drearily murmured the girl. And then she
continued, partly to herself, partly to Miss McDonald: "He will come now,
can't he? Not to that house. Never would I wish him to set foot in it.
But he is not forbidden to come to the place where we are going. Soon,
you think? Perhaps you might hint--oh no, not from me--just your idea.
Wouldn't it be natural, after our misfortune? Perhaps mamma would feel
differently after what has happened. Oh, that Montague! that horrid
little man! I think--I think I shall receive him coolly at first, just
to see."

But it was not immediately that the chance for a guileless woman to show
her coolness to her lover was to occur. This postponement was not due to
the coolness or to the good sense of Philip. When the catastrophe came,
his first impulse was that of a fireman who plunges into a burning
building to rescue the imperiled inmates. He pictured in his mind a
certain nobility of action in going forward to the unfortunate family
with his sympathy, and appearing to them in the heroic attitude of a man
whose love has no alloy of self-interest. They should speedily
understand that it was not the heiress, but the woman, with whom he was
in love.

But Miss McDonald understood human nature better than that, at least the
nature of Mrs. Mavick. People of her temperament, humiliated and
enraged, are best left alone. The fierceness with which she would have
turned upon any of her society friends who should have presumed to offer
her condolence, however sweetly the condescension were concealed, would
have been vented without mercy upon the man