"My dear Rodney:—It strikes me that Devil will be a remarkably fit messenger for the letter I'm going to write you. You see, I shall have it all written when I ride away this morning, but I think it will be more appropriate to take it with me and let Devil deliver it. You'll be sure to find it sooner or later.
"I'm going away with Lord Maxwell. I suppose you'll think I'm the only one to blame in the affair, and perhaps I am. But no matter about that. You needn't believe for a moment that I'm the least little bit in love with him, for I'm not. Who could love a man with a chin like his, and who was always telling you how jolly you are? No, I don't love him, and I was intensely in love with you. I've made a fine plan, I think. This is it: I go off with Donald—that's Lord Maxwell, you know. That makes a kind of scandal, to be sure, but it will soon blow over. I'm so deadly tired and deadly dull being with you, and you're so deadly tired and deadly dull being with me, that I, for one, think almost anything would be better than our staying together. You'll be able to get a divorce without the slightest trouble; and I'll get my freedom, too. Then we can change partners, as if the dance were over, and we glad enough that it is over. Marriage need not be such a hard and fast affair, for there's nothing in the world that people make such mistakes about as they do about marriage. Now, why not 'all change hands,' as they used to do in the old dances?
"I'm going to be very frank with you, Rodney. I'll confess that I might not take such a decided step as this if I were not afraid Maxwell would marry Carolyn. The dear girl! She has already refused him once, so he tells me; but what does one refusal mean? Just nothing at all; though it might with Carolyn. But I don't want to risk that. They say the third time never fails, and I shall be Lady Maxwell sooner or later. Of course I shall be under a cloud for awhile, but I'm not afraid but that I can win my way. And Donald is perfectly infatuated with me. That goes without saying. This time no brewer's daughter will step between us. How I am going on! But I wanted you to understand the whole thing. I hope you won't delay any about the divorce. Of course I know you love Carolyn; of course I know you'll thank me in time for what I'm doing. Why didn't I wait and try the incompatibility plea? Because Maxwell might marry Carolyn, and then you'd be as disappointed as I. So I'm sure, on the whole, you'll agree with me. And for the sake of regaining your freedom you'll forgive me for the scandal I make by doing this way. I'm sorry this way seemed to be necessary, for I don't mind saying I shrink from it. Now, my dear Rodney, don't swear; you'll live to thank me."
Thus the letter ended, without even a name signed to it.
"But it doesn't need a name," Lawrence said. He stood there and read the pages three times, each reading seeming to shed a still brighter glare on the character of the writer.
"That is the woman I married," he was thinking. "That woman!"
He turned about and faced the house, the turrets of which he could see above the trees, blurred in the mist. He walked out from among the syringas, walking unevenly, like a man who is drunk.
Above, in her chamber, Carolyn saw him. She was standing by the open window. She leaned forward and watched him, her tired eyes dilating as she watched. After a moment she left the room and ran quickly down the stairs and out of the house.
Suddenly, as Lawrence went staggering on, a slender shape glided up to him and drew his hand quickly within an arm.
"Rodney, lean on me," said Carolyn, in an unsteady voice, "Oh, how ill you are! Here, sit on this bench. I will go and get some one to help you."