“I’ll come,” said Constance. “I’ll come by-and-by when I’ve cleared lunch away. It’s no bother. As you say, I’m her friend.”
III
Rosamund stayed on at the little house behind the sea-wall, and she wrote letters, long and many, which accumulated on the mantel-piece of the rooms in the Temple. Andrew found them there when he returned to town in the middle of October. The room was cheerless, tenantless, fireless. He lit the gas and looked through his letters. He did not dare to open those which came from her. There were bills, invitation cards, a returned manuscript or two, a cheque for a magazine article, and a letter in Stephen’s hand-writing. It was dated a fortnight earlier.
“Dear old Chap,” it ran, “I’m off to my father’s. I can’t bear it. I can’t face you or any one. I wish to God I’d never told you anything about Rosamund Rainham’s money. There isn’t any money: it was all in the Crystal Oil Co. No one had the least idea that it wasn’t good, but I feel as if I ought to have known. There’s a beggarly hundred or so in consols: that’s the end of her million. It wasn’t really my fault, of course. She doesn’t blame me.—Yours,
“Stephen Guillemot.”
Then he opened her letters—read them all—in the order of the dates on the postmarks, for even in love Andrew was an orderly man—read them with eyes that pricked and smarted. There were four or five of them. First, the frank pleading of affection, then the coldness of hurt pride and love; then, doubts, wonderings. Was he ill? Was he away? Would he not at least answer? Passionate longing, tender anxiety breathed in every word. Then came the last letter of all, written a fortnight ago:
“Dear Andrew,—I want you to understand that all is over between us. I know you wished it, and now I see you are right. I could never have been anything to you but your loving friend,
“Rosamund.”