Illustrations
| "Can't you see that my heart's breaking, too?" She looked him in the face, shaking her head, sadly. "No, I can't see that." | [Frontispiece] |
| He turned from the girl to his wife. "I'm willing to explain anything you like—as far as I can." | [25] |
| "Oh, Chip, go away! I can't stand any more—now." "Do you mean that you'll see me—later—when we're in London?" | [155] |
| Edith was standing in the doorway, the man behind her. "Chip, Mr. Lacon knows we met in England." | [191] |
THE LETTER OF THE CONTRACT
I
TRANSGRESSION
It was strange to think that if, on finishing her coffee in her room, she had looked in on the children, as she generally did, instead of going down to the drawing-room to write a note, her whole life might have been different. "Why didn't I?" was the question she often asked herself in the succeeding years, only to follow it with the reflection: "But perhaps it would have happened in any case. Since the fact was there, I must have come to know it—in the long run."
The note was an unimportant one. She could have sent it by a servant at any minute of the day. The very needlessness of writing it at once, so that her husband could post it as he went to his office, gave to the act something of the force of fate.