embarrassed by his position before he was aware of his own danger.  He might, of course, have been stronger.”  Here Florence exhibited a gesture of strong impatience, though she did not speak.  “I am not going to defend him altogether, but I think you must admit that he was hardly tried.  Of course I can not say what passed between them, but I can understand how easily they might recur to the old scenes—­how naturally she would wish for a renewal of the love which she had been base enough to betray!  She does not, however, consider herself as at present engaged to him.  That you may know for certain.  It may be that she has asked him for such a promise, and that he has hesitated.  If so, his staying away from us, and his not writing to you, can be easily understood.”

“And what is it you would have me do?”

“He is ill now.  Wait till he is well.  He would have been here before this had not his illness prevented him.  Wait till he comes.”

“I can not do that, Cissy.  Wait I must, but I can not wait without offering him, through his mother, the freedom which I have so much reason to know that he desires.”

“We do not know that he desires it.  We do not know that his mother even suspects him of any fault toward you.  Now that he is there—­at home—­away from Bolton Street—­”

“I do not care to trust to such influences as that, Cissy.  If he could not spend this morning with her in her own house, and then, as he left her, feel that he preferred me to her, and to all the world, I would rather be as I am than take his hand.  He shall not marry me from pity, nor yet from a sense of duty.  We know the old story—­how the Devil would be a monk when he was sick.  I will not accept his sick-bed allegiance, or have to think that I owe my husband to a mother’s influence over him while he is ill.”

“You will make me think, Flo, that you are less true to him than she is.”

“Perhaps it is so.  Let him have what good such truth as hers can do him.  For me, I feel that it is my duty to be true to myself.  I will not condescend to indulge my heart at the cost of my pride as a woman.”

“Oh, Florence, I hate that word pride.”

“You would not hate it for yourself in my place.”

“You need take no shame to love him.”

“Have I taken shame to love him?” said Florence, rising again from her chair.  “Have I been missish or coy about my love?  From the moment in which I knew that it was a pleasure to myself to regard him as my future husband, I have spoken of my love as being always proud of it.  I have acknowledged it as openly as you can do yours for Theodore.  I acknowledge it still, and will never deny it.  Take shame that I have loved him!  No.  But I should take to myself great shame should I ever be brought so low as to ask him for his love, when once I had learned to think that he had transferred it from myself to another woman.”  Then she walked the length of the room, backward and forward, with hasty steps, not looking at her sister-in-law, whose eyes were now filled with tears.  “Come, Cissy,” she then said, “we will make an end of this.  Read my letter if you choose to read it—­though indeed it is not worth reading—­and then let me send it to the post.”