"Yes, Richard, I know your secret; I know that you have not been faithful to me; I know that for years your heart has been given to another. I cannot say that I hope you will be happy with her who occupies my place. At this solemn moment I will not be guilty of a subterfuge. The issue lies in God's hand, not in mine, nor in yours.
"I should not address this farewell to you if it were not that I feel I have not long to live. It is grief that is killing me, not a mortal disease which doctors can minister to.
"It is with distinct purpose that I put no address to this farewell. I have left the place I went to when you bade me good-by in London, and it is my desire that you shall not know where I am, that you shall not come to me. Remorse may touch your soul, and you may wish to come; but it would not be a sincere wish, springing, as it must, from a sudden false feeling of compassion in which there is no truth or depth. How could I believe what you said, after all the years of suffering I have gone through? And as a wife I must preserve my self-respect. Coming to me from a woman for whom you deserted me, I would not receive you. It is long since I bade farewell to happiness. I now bid farewell to you."
"That was all. Many times did I pause to question myself, and to read again, in doubt whether I had mistaken the words. That the accusation my wife brought against me was untrue you may believe, Rathbeal. No woman had won me from her side, and I was so far innocent. That, ignorant of the true cause of my neglect, she may have had grounds for suspicion, I could well believe, but she seemed to speak with something more than suspicion. Who had maligned me? Who had played me false? And for what purpose?
"I could think of no one. At times during my degraded career in London I had had disagreements with the men I played with, but I could not convict one of them with any degree of certainty.
"The postmark on the envelope was Paris, and there was but one means of ascertaining my wife's address--through the only friend I had in the world. To go to her, beggared as I was, would be adding shame to shame. Besides, I could not pay my hotel bill. But still it impressed itself upon me as an imperative duty that I should find her and make full confession; and then to bid her farewell forever.
"I wrote to my friend, to his address in London; I made a strong appeal to him, and informed him of the position I was in. He wrote back after a delay of two days; he said he had something of a very grave nature to attend to that would take him from England, and he could not, therefore, come to me at once. When he saw me he would inform me why he could not come earlier. I was to remain where I was till he arrived; he would be responsible for my hotel bill; I was not to trouble myself about that. I learned from the landlord that he had received a letter from my friend, making himself responsible for my debt to him.
"'You have had a turn of ill luck at the tables,' said the landlord. 'It is the way with most gentlemen; but sometimes a turn comes the other way.' He appeared perfectly satisfied, but I could not help feeling that he regarded me as a personal hostage for the amount of the bill.
"I wrote again to my friend, imploring him not to delay, and this time I received no answer to my letter. I supposed he had left England on the business he referred to, and in my helpless position I was compelled to wait and eat my heart away.
"Ten days elapsed before he came; he was dressed in mourning, and was sad and anxious, as though he had passed through some deep trouble.