Ste. Marie began to protest and to explain and to say that Miss Benham had been quite right in what she said, but the old gentleman only waved an impatient arm to him, and presently, when he saw the valet making signs across the bed, and saw that his host was really in a state of complete exhaustion after the outburst, he made his adieus and got away.
Young Arthur Benham, who had been sitting almost silent during the interview, followed him out of the room and closed the door behind them. For the first time Ste. Marie noted that the boy's face was white and strained. He pulled a crumpled square of folded paper from his pocket and shook it at the other man. "Do you know what this is?" he cried. "Do you know what's in this?"
Ste. Marie shook his head, but a sudden recollection came to him.
"Ah," said he, "that must be the note Mlle. O'Hara spoke of! She asked me to tell you that she meant it--whatever it may be--quite seriously; that it was final. She didn't explain. She just said that--that you were to take it as final."
The lad gave a sudden very bitter sob. "She has thrown me over!" he said. "She says I'm not to come back to her."
Ste. Marie gave a wordless cry, and he began to tremble.
"You can read it if you want to," the boy said. "Perhaps you can explain it. I can't. Do you want to read it?"
The elder man stood staring at him whitely, and the boy repeated his words.
He said, "You can read it if you want to," and at last Ste. Marie took the paper between stiff hands, and held it to the light.
Coira O'Hara said, briefly, that too much was against their marriage. She mentioned his age, the certain hostility of his family, their different tastes, a number of other things. But in the end she said she had begun to realize that she did not love him as she ought to do if they were to marry. And so, the note said, finally, she gave him up to his family, she released him altogether, and she begged him not to come back to her, or to urge her to change her mind. Also she made the trite but very sensible observation that he would be glad of his freedom before the year was out.