Glancing at the opening words, her eyes flashed with excitement as she exclaimed: "The campaign has opened! They are on the march this stormy night."
"May I ask if your letter is from Strahan?" Merwyn faltered.
"It is not from Mr. Strahan," she replied, quietly.
He arose and stood before her as erect and cold as herself. "Will you kindly give Mr. Vosburgh that book?" he said.
"Certainly."
"Will you also please say that I shall probably go to my country place in a day or two, and therefore may not see him again very soon."
She was both disappointed and angry, for she had meant kindly by him. The very consciousness that she had unbent so greatly, and had made what appeared to her pride an unwonted advance, incensed her, and she replied, in cold irony: "I will give papa your message. It will seem most natural to him, now that spring has come, that you should vary your mercantile with agricultural pursuits."
He appeared stung to the very soul by her words, and his hands clinched in his desperate effort to restrain himself. His white lips moved as he looked at her from eyes full of the agony of a wounded spirit. Suddenly his tense form became limp, and, with a slight despairing gesture, he said, wearily: "It is of no use. Good-by."