The phaeton was drawing near.
"I am going to trust you, Margaret, I believe that I can. You will not speak, you think I ought not to have spoken. But if I go away at once, and do not return, perhaps you will be influenced by what I have said, and by what is really the best course for you;—perhaps you will not go back to Lanse. At any rate I shall be showing you that I am in earnest,—that I can, and will keep my promise."
The phaeton drew up before them.
"You must not come with me," she murmured.
"You are to drive, Telano," said Winthrop, as he helped her take her place. He stood there until the light carriage had disappeared.
Then he walked northward to Gracias.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
"I said I would not write. And I will not, after I once know that your refusal has been sent. It does not seem to me that I am asking much, it cannot long be kept a secret in any case, and, in my opinion, should not be. Let Aunt Katrina write me what has happened; she won't do you any too much justice—you can be sure of that! I left Gracias that same day, as I said I would. I have come back here and gone to work again; a man can always do that."
This letter of Winthrop's was from New York. He had been there two weeks, and there were now but ten days left of the month which Margaret had said her husband had allowed for her answer. He did not speak of this in his letter; but it engrossed all his thoughts.