About a week after Brandon’s memorable interview with Mary an incident occurred which changed everything and came very near terminating his career in the flower of youth.  It also brought about a situation of affairs that showed the difference in the quality of these two persons thrown so marvelously together from their far distant stations at each end of the ladder of fortune, in a way that reflected very little credit upon the one from the upper end.  But before I tell you of that I will relate briefly one or two other matters that had a bearing upon what was done, and the motives prompting it.

To begin with, Brandon had kept himself entirely away from the princess ever since the afternoon at the king’s ante-chamber.  The first day or so she sighed, but thought little of his absence; then she wept, and as usual began to grow piqued and irritable.

What was left of her judgment told her it was better for them to remain apart, but her longing to see Brandon grew stronger as the prospect of it grew less, and she became angry that it could not be gratified.  Jane was right; an unsatisfied desire with Mary was torture.  Even her sense of the great distance between them had begun to fade, and when she so wished for him and he did not come, their positions seemed to be reversed.  At the end of the third day she sent for him to come to her rooms, but he, by a mighty effort, sent back a brief note saying that he could not and ought not to go.  This, of course, threw Mary into a great passion, for she judged him by herself—­a very common but dangerous method of judgment—­and thought that if he felt at all as she did, he would throw prudence to the winds and come to her, as she knew she would go to him if she could.  It did not occur to her that Brandon knew himself well enough to be sure he would never go to New Spain if he allowed another grain of temptation to fall into the balance against him, but would remain in London to love hopelessly, to try to win a hopeless cause, and end it all by placing his head upon the block.

It required all his strength, even now, to hold fast his determination to go to New Spain.  He had reached his limit.  He had a fund of that most useful of all wisdom, knowledge of self, and knew his limitations; a little matter concerning which nine men out of ten go all their lives in blissless ignorance.

Mary, who was no more given to self-analysis than her pet linnet, did not appreciate Brandon’s potent reasons, and was in a flaming passion when she received his answer.  Rage and humiliation completely smothered, for the time, her affection, and she said to herself, over and over again:  “I hate the low-born wretch.  Oh! to think what I have permitted!” And tears of shame and repentance came in a flood, as they have come from yielding woman’s eyes since the world was born.  Then she began to doubt his motives.  As long as she thought she had given her gift to one who offered a responsive passion, she was glad and proud of what