Pansy was very insistently eager to know what had passed between mamma and Mr. Gaunt the previous day. It was hard to stave off her pertinacious inquiry, but Virgie was able to tell her that negotiations were going on which might, or might not, lead to something. To-morrow would bring more news.
Thus the dawn broke upon the fatal day—a day of persistent fine rain which did nothing to abate the heat.
At about ten o'clock the loud imperative knock of a telegraph boy sounded upon the little door. Virginia took in the message. It was from Gaunt, and ran thus—
Please reply definitely to business offer, which otherwise is off.
The girl sat down, with knees shaking, staring at the message, which was reply paid. The boy waited whistling in the little entrance passage.
Should she give the definite answer demanded? Could she face the knowledge that all hope was over? She would not show her mother the despotic telegram. She knew that she must answer it for herself.
Taking a pencil she wrote:
Definite reply impossible till after visit. May we expect you?
She prepaid the reply to this, dismissed the boy, and walked into the kitchen with limbs shaking. She felt as if she had defied the robber chief who was holding them all to ransom.
It is difficult to describe the storm of excitement in which she awaited the second message. Her mother and Pansy both demanded the meaning of the double knock. She replied tranquilly to her mother that Mr. Gaunt had tried to extort a definite answer, which she had refused to give. Mrs. Mynors' cry: "Then he won't come after all?" was so tragic that the girl's heart contracted.