It was written in pencil; written in haste.
"I did intend not to have sent a word to any of you, but just as I am starting for London I feel I must scribble a message to you, dear little Caroline. Ask Agnes to forgive me. The fact is I cannot bring myself to write to her, and you—you little bit of a thing as you are, draw me as I have never been drawn before. I am taking a big step to-night, Caroline. It is ridiculous to suppose that you will any of you regard what I am doing as anything but madness, but I cannot help myself. Everything forces me away from what you all think the best for me; but then, you see, you none of you have known just exactly what has been passing with me. I had a great temptation to open my heart to you when we were together out on the marshes to-day, but I could not do it. Remember what I told you about the children. They won't see me for some little while, but as soon as possible they will come to me, and you, too ... if you will come. Tell Agnes I will write to her in a day or two, and that I am always hers lovingly, that is if she cares any longer for my love."
The initials "C. L." were scribbled under this.
Caroline put down the letter, and stood staring ahead of her, seeing nothing.
At first the full significance of what Camilla had written did not come to her. She was only conscious of that almost hopeless feeling of irresistance, of surrender to emotion, which any acutely pathetic element produces.
But this dazed, only half-conscious sensation, passed from her quickly, and then her mind began to act nervously, feverishly. She spun threads together, and with hideous clearness she remembered now the words Dennis had spoken only just a little while before.
She took up the letter again, and she read it this time deliberately.
"She is gone to London," she said to herself; "that means that she will sleep there—that she will not leave till to-morrow, wherever she is going. It has all been planned out. She got rid of Dennis because Dennis might have asked questions. Lea Abbey was only one of the details, and now she is in London. Well, I shall go there, too!"
She crumpled the letter, and went quickly into the corridor. The nursery-maid was in a room a little further along.
"Please stay with the children," said Caroline; "I am going downstairs."