It cost her many a pang to indite this epistle, but the urgency of the case required it, and she had no other alternative.
The letter bewildered him. At first he could not realise it, but in a little time slowly and clearly the terrible truth came home to him.
Aveline had forsaken him for mere vanity, wealth, and luxury.
She had given him up and left him for ever.
When his mind had quite grasped that truth, a terrible cry came from his lips, and he fell into a chair in almost a prostrate condition.
When he recovered he sat for long hours in that room which was never again to be brightened by his wife’s presence.
Then hot anger, fierce invectives succeeded—anger so wild, so frantic, that he was for the time like a madman.
Who had taken his darling from him? She would not have left him of her own free will—he felt convinced of that.
Who had tempted her? He cursed the proud lord who had robbed him of his treasure.
Then he was reminded by her letter that it was of her own free will that she had done it.