all.  She would sit in the same place at the breakfast table.  She would meet Clarence again, and Marie—­oh—­oh, she could not bear the thought of it!  She sat up on her bedside with such a weary, anguished look in her eyes!  Then she went to kneel at the open window, where her mother had taught her to kneel long years ago.  Her sweet-faced, long-dead mother!  When she raised her eyes again the east was all aglow with the pink and purple dawn, and the rooks were cawing in the pines across the meadow.  She paced the floor for a moment or two.

“Yes, it must be done.  I will do it,” she thought.  “He loves her.  I will not stand in the way of his happiness.  No; I had rather die.”

And she took a sheet of note-paper, and wrote these simple words: 

“DEAR CLARENCE,—­I do not believe you love me any more.  I can never be your wife.  I know your secret.  I know you love Marie.  I have seen it often in your eyes.  Be happy with her, and forget me.  May you be very happy, always.  Good-bye.  BETH.”

She took it herself to the Mayfair home, knowing that her father would only think she had gone out for a morning walk.  The smoke-wreaths were curling upward from the kitchen chimneys as she passed down the street, and Squire Mayfair looked a little surprised when she handed him her note for Clarence, and turned to walk away.

That sleepless, tearless night had told upon her, and she was not able to come down to breakfast.  Her father came in, and looked at her with a professional air.

“Just what I told you, Beth.  You’ve worked too hard.  You need rest.  That’s just what’s the matter,” he said, in a brusque voice, as he put some medicine on the table and left the room.

Rest!  Yes, she could rest now.  Her work was done.  She looked at the sheet of manuscript that she had taken last night to show Clarence.  Yes, the work was done.  She had reached the end of her story—­the end of her prospect of marriage.  Ended her labor—­ended her life-dream!

As for Clarence, he read her note without any emotion.

“Humph!  I didn’t think Grafton was the fellow to make mischief so quickly.  A tale-bearer!  Well, it’s all for the best.  I made a mistake.  I do not love Beth Woodburn.  I cannot understand her.”

Beth slept, and seemed much better in the afternoon, but she was still quite pale when she went into her father’s room after tea.

“Dear old daddy,” she said, putting her arms about his neck, “you were always so kind.  You never refuse me anything if you can help it.  I wish you would let me go away.”

“Why, certainly, Beth, dear!” he said briskly.  “Isn’t that just what I’ve been telling you?  Stop writing all day in that hot room up-stairs.  Go off and have a frolic.  Go and see your Aunt Margaret.”

And so it was settled that if Beth were well enough she should start for Welland next afternoon.  She did not see Clarence during the next morning.  It surprised her that he sought no explanation, and before three o’clock Briarsfield was a mere speck in the distance.