Allan's belief in Mrs. Milroy's good faith had been so
implicitly sincere that her letter simply bewildered him. He saw
vaguely that he had been deceived in some way, and that Mrs.
Milroy's neighborly interest in him was not what it had looked on
the surface; and he saw no more. The threat of appealing to the
major--on which, with a woman's ignorance of the natures of men,
Mrs. Milroy had relied for producing its effect--was the only
part of the letter to which Allan reverted with any satisfaction:
it relieved instead of alarming him. "If there _is_ to be a
quarrel," he thought, "it will be a comfort, at any rate, to have
it out with a man."
Firm in his resolution to shield the unhappy woman whose secret
he wrongly believed himself to have surprised, Allan sat down to
write his apologies to the major's wife. After setting up three
polite declarations, in close marching order, he retired from the
field. "He was extremely sorry to have offended Mrs. Milroy. He
was innocent of all intention to offend Mrs. Milroy. And he
begged to remain Mrs. Milroy's truly." Never had Allan's habitual
brevity as a letter-writer done him better service than it did
him now.
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