That same afternoon, Mary Sorel began a letter to Severance, a letter embroidered with points of admiration, dashes, underlinings, and parentheses.

"Dear Tony," she wrote, for she felt the warm affection of an Egeria, mingled with that of a mother-in-law elect, for him: and it pleased all that was snobbish in her soul to have this intimate feeling for an earl.

"Dear Tony, I shall be cabling you about the time you land, according to promise. But I promised as well to write a sort of diary letter, giving you all the developments day by day, and posting the document at the end of the week. Well, this is the first instalment, written—as you'll see by the date—on the day of your sailing.

"How I wish I had better news to give you! But don't be alarmed. Things are not going as we hoped, yet they might be worse. And now you are prepared by that preface, I'll try to tell you exactly the state of affairs!

"At least, I shall be able to explain a mystery that puzzled and worried us both yesterday, after the—I suppose in lieu of a better word I'm bound to call it 'marriage'! Neither you nor I could understand precisely how That Man had got my poor child so under his thumb, when by rights he should have been under her foot!

"What he does is this: he simply threatens at every turn to go away and tell everyone, including newspaper men, the whole story from beginning to end. You might think with an ordinary person that this was all bluff. Because, if the story hurt you and Marise, and even me, it would hurt him as much. But whatever he may be (and he might be almost anything!) he is not an ordinary person. He appears perfectly reckless of his own reputation. Apparently he cares not enough to lift his finger, or let it fall, for the opinion of others, no matter who. If he said he would do some dreadful thing it wouldn't be safe to hope he was merely making an idle threat. He would do it, I'm sure he would!

"That's the secret of his power over our poor little Marise, and I must admit, to a certain extent over me.

"I have been having a long talk with him about the future—the immediate future, I mean, of course, for the more distant future I hope and believe will be controlled by you!

"When I reproached the man for browbeating my daughter, he actually retorted that we had no right to try and pin him to a certain line of conduct, and not pay him for it! Shameless! But that sample will show you what we are going through. I shall indeed rejoice for every reason when you are restored to us. You have told me that your cousin Œnone has what amounts to a million of American dollars, all her own, and that her father intends giving you another million on your marriage to her; so you will be in a position to complete your bargain with this Fiend. In order to obtain the money, he will have to keep his part of the agreement.

"Yes, 'Fiend' is the word. Indeed, I used it aloud this afternoon in addressing him, so utterly did he enrage me. He will not allow Marise to go with me to Los Angeles and accept the loan of Bell Towers, which you so kindly placed at our disposal till your return with your poor little invalid, Œnone. He has a house of his own, out West, it seems—Arizona or somewhere wild-sounding. I believe it's near the Grand Canyon—wherever that is! And heaven alone knows what it's like—the house, I mean, not the Canyon, which I am told is an immense abyss miles deep, full of blood-red rocks or something terrific.

"Garth insists that the unhappy child shall accompany him to this desolate spot, which is more or less on the way to California. The alternative he puts before her is of course the eternal (I nearly said, 'infernal'!) one, of deserting his bride with a blast of trumpets. Neither you, nor Marise, nor I, can afford to let this happen! Almost anything would be preferable at a crisis so delicate for you with your uncle. Especially as Marise vows that, alone with her, the monster is not so formidable. In fact, she says she can account for his conduct at these times only by supposing that he does not like her, or is in love with someone else.

"I wonder, by the way, do you know at all if he has any money? My impression, when he so easily accepted your somewhat original offer, was that he had none. But he made Marise several handsome presents of jewellery, which must have cost a great deal, if he paid cash! Perhaps he used his V.C. to get them on tick—if such a thing is possible! Marise refused, quite definitely, she tells me, to take these gifts from him. To-day, she chanced to ask Garth how he had disposed of them after her refusal. Though she put the question most tactfully, even remarking that she was sorry for some little abruptness when returning the jewel-cases (I don't know details!), the man denied her right to ask what he had done. Marise persisted, however, in that sweet little determined way she has, and Garth at length flung out in reply that he had given the things to another person. Imagine it! Marise's wedding presents!

"Nothing more was to be got out of him, however. Instinct whispers to me that the child suspects a certain young woman of having received the jewels. (Why, such a thing is almost like being a receiver of stolen goods, since surely they're the property of Marise. Not that she wants or would look at them again!) She did not tell me this. It is my own heart—the heart of a mother—which speaks. All she said was, that Garth wouldn't mention the name of the receiver, and resented her 'catechising' him. He put the matter like this: If she'd given him wedding presents, and he practically trampled them under foot, with scorn, wouldn't she consider herself free to do what she liked with the objects? Wouldn't she wish to get rid of them and never see them again? Wouldn't her first thought be to give them away? And how would she feel if he wanted to know what she'd done with the things?

"To the three first questions, Marise found herself obliged to answer 'Yes.' (She has an almost abnormal sense of justice for a woman, you know!) To the fourth, she replied in an equally self-sacrificing way, so in the end the man triumphed. But it was this business of the wedding presents which (as I've explained to you now) he deliberately took back (we Americans call this being an 'Indian giver'!) that has made Marise think he's in love with someone.

"I may have guessed the person in her mind; but, as you will feel no interest in that side of the subject, I'll not bore you by dwelling on it at present. The interest for you in Garth's being in love with a woman who is not our Marise (no matter who!) is obvious. If the child is right in her conjectures, she is also right, no doubt, in asserting that she need have no fear the man will lose his head.

"In reading over what I have just written, I see that I may have given you a wrong impression. It sounds as if I had resigned myself to see Marise go off to live alone with Garth in his house by the abyss. Which is not the case, of course. I shall be with her. That is, I shall be most of the time—the best bargain I can drive! Except that, naturally, CÉline will always be with her. And if Garth is a Demon, CÉline can be a dragon. She has learned this art from Me. She is absolutely faithful, and devoted to your interests. In order to make sure of her services when needed in any possible emergency, I have more or less confided in her, which I think was wise.

"Now, before I write further, I will set your mind at rest as far as possible.

"Garth has used the power he holds to the uttermost, and no entreaties on the part of author or manager have moved him. Marise is to give up the part of Dolores in a fortnight, and Susanne Neville begins rehearsing to-morrow! Poor Sheridan, poor Belloc! Poor play! Poor public! My daughter is immediately after to start for the West with her 'husband'—and maid! I wished to be of the party, but Garth brutally inquired if 'that sort of thing was done in the smart set'—mothers-in-law accompanying bridal pairs on their honeymoon? If I wanted gossip, there would be a good way to get it, he said. He is continually throwing gossip in our faces, whenever we propose anything he doesn't like!

"After a most exhausting (to me) argument, it was settled that I should remain in New York for a few days after their departure, and that I should then leave also, going straight on to Los Angeles. There I will open beautiful Bell Towers, and see that all is ready for your advent, with the invalid. Meanwhile Marise is to visit some sort of female named Mooney, an adopted mother of Garth. She lives near a town called Albuquerque, which if I don't forget is in New Mexico. You can perhaps look it up on the map. Garth appears to have cause for gratitude to this woman, who is an elderly widow. He has spent some years (I don't know how many, and do not care!) in that State and the neighbouring one of Arizona; and I gather from one or two words he let drop that he gave Mrs. Mooney the house she now owns. In any case, he said he must pay her a visit, not having seen her since the time when he joined the British forces at the beginning of the war. And if he went, his wife would have to go with him!

"The man evidently expected that Marise would object; but in the circumstances the idea seemed quite a good one! You see why, of course, dear Tony? This old woman will be an extra chaperon for our girl, whose wild impulsiveness has brought so much worry and trouble to us all. Garth cannot make scenes before his foster-mother, for the very shame of it!

"After a short visit there, he will take Marise and CÉline to his own place: and you may be sure I shall not be long in joining my child, to give her my protection!

"Do, my dear son-to-be, hurry on your marriage. You must cable me the moment you get this, when you are likely to arrive, addressing me here, where I shall still be at that time. All our difficulties will end when you are able to hand Garth the million dollars. (I quite understand it would be imprudent to send a cheque or a letter to him. Who knows what desperate thing he might do when he had got the money?) The one safe thing will be a conversation, and the money in bonds. Then, as you suggested, you can dictate a document for Garth to sign, compromising to him but not to you. You can also dictate terms—as you would have done from the first, if Marise had not tried to punish you—by punishing herself! But oh, let it be soon—soon! The strain is telling upon my nerves—and no doubt the nerves of Marise, though she is singularly reserved with me, I regret to say—one would almost think sulky, poor child!

"I can't express the pain it gives me to upset you with all these anxieties. But I dared not keep silence, lest you should learn of this journey West, and so on, through some garbled story in the newspapers. You might then think the worst; whereas now, you are in the secret of your dear girl's safety. No harm will come to her: and thank goodness there will be no tittle-tattle to rouse Mr. Ionides's suspicions!

"I presume you will marry your cousin by special licence, so as to hurry things on; and I comfort myself by thinking that before many days all will be en train. Perhaps in a fortnight after you reach England you will be arranging to leave again for the benefit of the invalid's health. California is the most wonderful place in the world for a cure. But, of course, the poor Œnone is incurable, and is not likely to be with you on this earth for more than a year or two at worst—I mean, at most.

"When you have settled with Garth, he will have no further excuse to assert himself. I shall find a house near Bell Towers, and Marise will come to me. The time of waiting for happiness will pass in the consolation of warm platonic friendship and lovely surroundings. An excuse can be found for Marise's divorce; and Garth will pass out of our lives for ever!

"Now I have explained everything as well as I can, and I shall add items of interest each day until time comes for posting my letter. Au revoir, dear Tony! Yours, M. S.—the initials you love!"