"You have told me all that you have to tell," she said; "be so good as to get out of the way while I shut the window."
The "Softy" drew back and allowed her to close the sashes; she bolted the window, and drew down the Venetian blind, effectually shutting out her spy, who crept away slowly and reluctantly towards the shrubbery, through which he could make his way safely out of the grounds.
"I've paid her out," he muttered, as he shambled off under the shelter of the young trees; "I've paid her out pretty tidy. It's almost better than money," he said, laughing silently—"it's almost better than money to pay off them kind of debts."
Aurora seated herself at John Mellish's desk, and wrote a few hurried lines upon a sheet of paper that lay uppermost amongst letters and bills.
"My dear Love,"—she wrote,—"I cannot remain here to see you after the discovery which has been made to-day. I am a miserable coward; and I cannot meet your altered looks, I cannot hear your altered voice. I have no hope that you can have any other feeling for me than contempt and loathing. But on some future day, when I am far away from you, and the bewilderment of my present misery has grown less, I will write and explain everything. Think of me mercifully, if you can; and if you can believe that, in the wicked concealments of the last few weeks, the mainspring of my conduct has been my love for you, you will only believe the truth. God bless you, my best and truest. The pain of leaving you for ever is less than the pain of knowing that you had ceased to love me. Good-bye."
She lighted a taper, and sealed the envelope which contained this letter.
"The spies who hate and watch me shall not read this," she thought, as she wrote John's name upon the envelope.
She left the letter upon the desk, and, rising from her seat, looked round the room,—looked with a long lingering gaze, that dwelt on each familiar object. How happy she had been amongst all that masculine litter! how happy with the man she had believed to be her husband! how innocently happy before the coming down of that horrible storm-cloud which had overwhelmed them both! She turned away with a shudder.
"I have brought disgrace and misery upon all who have loved me," she thought. "If I had been less cowardly,—if I had told the truth,—all this might have been avoided, if I had confessed the truth to Talbot Bulstrode."
She paused at the mention of that name.