Next day Mark went North with David Ross. Before departure he wrote a letter to Betty, which successfully obscured the facts. He feared that Betty might insist upon appointing herself his nurse. And if she came to him, would he have strength to send her away? Once she had spoken shudderingly of a friend married to a hopeless invalid: a poor wretch lingering on, half dead, changing day by day into something unrecognisable in mind and body.
"You have the right," he wrote, "to demand an explanation, which I must give. I am and shall remain outside that garden into which we strayed last Saturday. What more can I say? Nothing. Try to think of me as a boy who was near and dear to you...."
The letter was filled up with details concerning his work. Reading it, the conclusion was inevitable that the writer had become absorbed in such work. He hinted at the possibility of taking a vow of celibacy.
Betty kissed this letter before she broke the seal, making sure that it was a love-letter. Then she read it, with perceptive faculties blunted by shock. Lady Randolph found her in the Italian garden, staring at the figure of Aphrodite.
"You were right," she exclaimed passionately. "Mark prefers his work to—me."
Lady Randolph kissed her.
"I have been a fool," said Betty, bursting into tears.
CHAPTER XVIII
ARIADNE IN NAXOS
Lady Randolph wisely said nothing, but she wrote to Mark. He replied by return of post.