"Thank you. And will you give Dorian a written message from me?"
"I will," she says again. And tearing a leaf from his pocket-book, he writes, as follows:
"When last we parted, it was with the expressed determination on your part never again to enter my doors until such time as I should send for you. I do so now, and beg you will come up to Hythe on Thursday next at half-past one o'clock. I should not trouble you so far, but that business demands your presence. I give you my word not to detain you longer than is absolutely necessary."
Folding up this note, he gives it to her, and pressing her hand warmly, parts from her, and goes back again to Hythe.
When in answer to his uncle's summons, Dorian walks into the library at Hythe on Thursday afternoon, he is both astonished and disconcerted to find his wife there before him. She had given the letter not to him, but to one of the men-servants to deliver to him: so that he is still in utter ignorance of her meeting in the wood with his uncle.
"You here?" he says to her, after he has acknowledged Lord Sartoris's presence by the coldest and haughtiest of salutations.
She says, "Yes," in a low tone, without raising her eyes.
"I was not aware you and Lord Sartoris were on such intimate terms."
"We met by chance last Monday for the first time," returns she, still without troubling herself to turn her eyes in his direction.
"You will sit down?" says Sartoris, nervously pushing a chair towards him. Dorian is looking so pale and haggard, so unlike himself, that the old man's heart dies within him. What "evil days" has he not fallen on!