He wondered whether, when he fell asleep, he would dream about Helen or about Clare. And yet, when at last his very tiredness made him close his eyes, he dreamed of neither of them, but slept in perfect calm, as a child that has been forgiven.
In the morning they brought his breakfast up to him in bed, and with it a letter and a telegram. The chambermaid asked him dubiously if he were feeling better and he replied: "Oh yes, much better, thanks." Only vaguely could he remember what had taken place during the night.
When the girl had gone and he had glanced at the handwriting on the envelope, he had a sudden paralysing shock, for it was Helen's!
The postmark was: "Seacliffe, 10.10 p.m."
He tore open the envelope with slow and awful dread, and took out a single sheet of Beach Hotel notepaper. Scribbled on it in pencil was just:
"DEAR KENNETH" ("Dear" underlined),—Good-bye, darling. I can't bear you not to be happy. Forget me and don't worry. They will think it has been an accident, and you mustn't tell them anything else. Leave Millstead and take Clare away. Be happy with her.—Yours, HELEN."—
"P.S.—There's one thing I'm sorry for. On the last night before we left Millstead I said something about Clare and Pritchard. Darling, it was a lie—I made it up because I couldn't bear you to love Clare so much. I don't mind now. Forgive me."
A moment later he was opening the telegram and reading: "Shall arrive Seacliffe Station one fifteen meet me Clare."
It had been despatched from Millstead at nine-five that morning, evidently as soon as the post office opened.
He ate no breakfast. It was a quarter past eleven and the sun was streaming in through the window—the first spring day of the year. He re-read the letter.
Strange that until then the thought that the catastrophe could have been anything at all but accidental had never even remotely occurred to him! Now it came as a terrible revelation, hardly to be believed, even with proof; a revelation of that utmost misery that had driven her to the sea. He had known that she was not happy, but he had never guessed that she might be miserable to death.