"I am going to do my best for Corrie, whatever happens. Please trust me so far, and if I have offended or seemed to fail in this letter, remember my past months in excuse.
"Allan Gerard."
Flavia laid down the sheet of paper. In that moment she suffered less from the destruction of her own happiness than from the destruction of Gerard's. This cry out of his anguish to the one for whom alone he had broken the stoical muteness in which he had wrapped his endured pain of mind and body, this self-revelation that was the difficult baring of a heart not used to show itself and avowal of weakness at the core of so much strength, drew from her an outrush of maternal protectiveness that rolled its flood above personal grief. If she could have sent Isabel to him, then, an Isabel worthy of the high trust and pathetic dignity in humility of that letter, she could have accepted her own sorrow. But she knew Isabel Rose, knew the vanity of that hope even as she tried to realize it.
"You know what Mr. Gerard wishes to say to you, to-morrow?" she asked composedly. If the composure was overdone, it was the error of a novice in acting.
The other girl shrank back.
"Yes—I——"
"Then, why do you not answer him? Surely, if you expected him to write this, you must answer him."
"I will not!" Isabel cried loudly and rebelliously. "I will not go, I will not see him hurt like that and hear him, hear him——" she broke off, fighting for breath. "Tell him to go away. I can't help it now, I can't see him. It's all over!"
This was the woman Allan Gerard had chosen, Flavia thought in bitter wonder; this self-centred, hysterical girl whose love could not survive the marring of her lover's outward beauty. Isabel could not bear to go to him; the irony of it sank deep into the girl who could scarcely bear to stay away. But Flavia turned to the mute Rupert, holding her dignity steadily above her pitiful confusion of mind, striving, also, to ease this blow to Gerard, who was so little fit to receive it.
"Pray inform Mr. Gerard that Miss Rose is unwell and hardly able to answer his letter now," she directed. "I hope she will be able to accompany Mr. Corwin Rose, to-morrow morning, as he suggests."