"None, Mr. Murray."
"Will you oblige me by looking me full in the face, and repeating your flattering words?"
She raised her head, and though her heart throbbed fiercely as she met his eyes, her voice was cold, steady and resolute.
"None, Mr. Murray."
"Thank you. Some day those same red lips will humbly, tremblingly crave my pardon for what they utter now; and then, Edna Earl, I shall take my revenge, and you will look back to this night and realize the full force of my parting words--voe victis!"
He stooped and picked up a bow of rose-colored ribbon which had fallen from her throat, handed it to her, smiled, and, with one of those low, graceful, haughty bows so indicative of his imperious nature, he left the library. A moment after, she heard his peculiar laugh, mirthless and bitter, ring through the rotunda; then the door was slammed violently, and quiet reigned once more through the mansion.
Taking the candle from the table, where Mr. Murray had placed it, Edna went back to her own room and sat down before the window.
On her lap lay the package and letter, which she no longer felt any desire to open, and her hands drooped listlessly at her side. The fact that her MS. was returned rung a knell for all her sanguine hopes, for such was her confidence in the critical acumen of Mr. Manning that she deemed it utterly useless to appeal to any other tribunal. A higher one she knew not; a lower she scorned to consult.
She felt like Alice Lisle on that day of doom, when Jeffreys pronounced the fatal sentence; and, after a time, when she summoned courage to open the letter, her cheeks were wan and her lips compressed so firmly that their curves of beauty were no longer traceable.
"MISS EARL: I return your MS., not because it is devoid of merit, but from the conviction that were I to accept it, the day would inevitably come when you would regret its premature publication. While it contains irrefragable evidence of extraordinary ability, and abounds in descriptions of great beauty, your style is characterized by more strength than polish, and is marred by crudities which a dainty public would never tolerate. The subject you have undertaken is beyond your capacity--no woman could successfully handle it--and the sooner you realize your overestimate of your powers, the sooner your aspirations find their proper level, the sooner you will succeed in your treatment of some theme better suited to your feminine ability. Burn the enclosed MS., the erudition and archaisms of which would fatally nauseate the intellectual dyspeptics who read my 'Maga,' and write sketches of home life-descriptions of places and things that you understand better than recondite analogies of ethical creeds and mythologic systems, or the subtle lore of Coptic priests. Remember that women never write histories or epics; never compose oratorios that go sounding down the centuries; never paint 'Last Suppers' and 'Judgment Days'; though now and then one gives the world a pretty ballad that sounds sweet and soothing when sung over a cradle, or another paints a pleasant little genre sketch which will hang appropriately in some quiet corner and rest and refresh eyes that are weary with gazing at the sublime spiritualism of Fra Bartolomeo, or the gloomy grandeur of Salvator Rosa. If you have any short articles that you desire to see in print, you may forward them, and I will select any for publication, which I think you will not blush to acknowledge in future years.