"After all I am sending this to Leipzig. I daren't not tell you before you arrive. I sometimes feel as if I had done something wrong! Tell me, directly you take me in your arms, that I did right, and that you are glad. I am down, as usual, now, and baby is quite well."
Aubrey's hands shook as he folded the thin paper, opened a drawer, pushed the letter far into it, and locked the drawer.
Then, with set face, he turned to his own letter to Ronald West's wife.
"My own Beloved—
"Yes, I call you so still, because you were mine, and are mine. You threw me over, giving me no chance to prove that my love for you had made me worthy—that I would have been worthy. You sent me into outer darkness, where there was wailing and gnashing of teeth; where the worm of remorse dies—never. But, through it all, I loved you still. I love you to-night, as I never loved you before. The whole world is nothing to me, excepting as the place on which you walk.
"I have seen the man—- the selfish, self-absorbed fool—on whom you threw yourself away, six months after you had cast me adrift. At this moment he is my guest, snoring in an adjoining room while I sit up writing to you.
"He has spent the evening talking of nothing but himself, his journey, his wonderful book—the strongest thing he has done yet, etc., etc., etc.; till I could have risen up and strangled him with my two hands. Oh, Helen—my lovely one—he is altogether unworthy of you! I saw a letter of yours long ago, in which you said he was like a young sun-god. Handsome he is, I admit. He says he has never felt fitter in his life, and he looks it. But surely a woman wants more than mere vitality and vigour and outward beauty of appearance? Heart—he has none. The wonderful news in your letter has left him unmoved. He thinks more of a 'cello he has just bought than he does of your little son. When I remonstrated with him, he rose up and struck me on the mouth. But I forgave him for your sake, and he now sleeps under my roof.
"Helen, he must have disappointed you over and over again. He will continue to disappoint you.
"Helen, you loved me once; and when a woman loves once, she loves for always.
"Helen, if he could leave you alone during seven months, in order to get local scenery for a wretched manuscript, he will leave you again, and again, and yet again. He married you for your money; he has practically admitted it to me; but now that he is making a yearly income larger than your own, he has no more use for you.