"Are you going?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You are not offended with me for all this plain talk? I like you so much, you know, that I want to see you happy."
"Offended?" she answered, "oh, no! Some day I will thank you; I cannot now."
She opened the door and was gone, flitting along, a lonely figure in the bleak winter twilight. She never paused in her rapid walk until she reached Danton Hall; and then, pale and absorbed, she ran rapidly upstairs, and shut herself into her room. Throwing off her bonnet and mantle, she sat down to her writing-desk at once, and without waiting to think, took up a pen and dashed off a rapid note:
"Sir Ronald:—I have deceived you. I have done very wrong. I don't love you—I never can; and I cannot be your wife. I am very sorry; I ask you to forgive me—to be generous, and release me from my promise. I should be miserable as your wife, and I would make you miserable too. Oh! pray forgive me, and release me, for indeed I cannot marry you.
"Kate Danton."
She folded the note rapidly, placed it in an envelope, wrote the address, "Sir Ronald Keith," and sealed it. Still in the same rapid way, as if she were afraid to pause, afraid to trust herself, she arose and rang the bell. Eunice answered the summons, and stared aghast at her mistress' face.
"Do you know if Sir Ronald is in the house?" Miss Danton asked.
"Yes, Miss; he's sitting in the library, reading a paper."