But"-- a rare smile came to his handsome mouth--"as this is a letter to YOU, you must not insult ME by not accepting it." Replying to his smile rather than the words that accompanied it, Miss Nevil smiled, too.

Nevertheless, she was uneasy and disturbed.

The interview, whatever she might have vaguely expected from it, had resolved itself simply into a business indorsement of her lover, which she had not sought, and which gave her no satisfaction.

Yet there was the same potent and indefinably protecting presence before her which she had sought, but whose omniscience and whose help she seemed to have lost the spell and courage to put to the test.

He relieved her in his abrupt but not unkindly fashion.