Yes, there was his wife's handwriting, close, upright, regular; her hand had not trembled when she had penned these lines.
Lawrence's lips set themselves hardly under his mustache, as his eyes, beneath heavily frowning brows, glanced at the first words. These words were "My dear Rodney."
Having read thus much, Lawrence turned and pulled a chair up to the window. Then he looked at the door; what if some one should come in? It not being his own room he could not turn the key. He felt as if he were on the brink of a precipice and he must be alone that he might gaze over the edge of it unhindered.
Was it possible that he hated the woman who had written this? And now had she disgraced him?
He walked out of the room with the letter held tightly in his hand. As he reached the outer door Mrs. Ffolliott's voice called from above the stairs:
"Rodney! You mustn't go! Lee may want you when he wakes."
"I will come back," he answered.
"Be sure! Come right back."
Lawrence made an inarticulate sound in response, then he closed the outer door behind him and stood in the open air.
He hastened beyond a thicket of syringa; then, leaning against a tree, he opened the paper again.