Tuesday morning's post brought explanation. Two letters lay on the breakfast table, both from a fresh hotel, the Hôtel Métropole, both addressed in Frida Tancred's handwriting, one to the Colonel and the other to Durant. Durant's ran thus:
"Dear Mr. Durant:—You will explain everything to my father, won't you? I have done my best, but he will never see it; it is the sort of thing he never could see—my reasons for going away and staying away. They are hard to understand, but, as far as I have made them out myself, it seems that I went away for his sake; but I believe, in fact I know, that I shall stay away for my own. You will understand it; we thrashed it all out that Saturday afternoon—you remember?—and you understood then. And so I trust you.
"Always sincerely yours,
"Frida Tancred.
"P.S.—Write and tell me how he takes it. I can see it—so clearly!—from his point of view. I hope he will not be unhappy.
"P.P.S.—We sail to-morrow."
He was still knitting his brows over the opening sentences when the Colonel flicked his own letter across the table.
"Read this, Durant, and tell me what you think of it."
Durant read:
"My Dear Father:—You will see from Georgie's telegram that we shall be leaving England to-morrow. I did not tell you this before because it would have meant so much explanation, and if we once began explaining things I don't think I should ever have gone at all. And I had to go. Believe me, I was convinced that in going I was doing the best thing for you. I thought you had been making sacrifices for my sake, and that you would be happier without me, though you would not say so. Whether I could have brought myself to leave you without the help of this conviction, and whether I have the conviction strongly still, I cannot say; it is hard to be perfectly honest, even with myself. But now that I have gone I simply can't come back again. Not yet. Perhaps never, till I have done the things I want to do.
"Of course you will be angry—it is so unexpected. But only think—you would not be angry, would you, if I married? You would have considered that perfectly legitimate. Yet it would have meant my leaving you for good. And what marriage and settling down in it is to other women, seeing the world and wandering about in it is to me—it's the thing I care for most. We do not talk about these things, so this is the first you have heard of it. Think—if I had been very much in love with anyone I would have said nothing about it till I was all but engaged to him. It's the same thing. And it will make less difference to you than my marriage would have made."