"Colonel Carlyle, I will tell you this much," she said, "for I see that you suspect me of that which I would rather die than be guilty of. I am not going because a guilty passion for a former lover is driving me from your arms to his. If I go into exile I shall go alone, and I shall pray for death every hour until my weary days upon earth are ended forever. Death is the only happiness I look for, the future holds nothing for me but the blackness of darkness. I can tell you nothing more!"
She ceased, and dropped her anguished face into the friendly shelter of her hands again. He remained rooted to the spot as if he could never move again.
"Bonnibel," he said, at last, "surely some subtle madness possesses you. You do not know what you would do. I must save you from yourself until you become rational again."
With these words he went out of the room, locking the door behind him.
[CHAPTER XXXV.]
Colonel Carlyle had not quitted the room an hour before Bonnibel's maid, Dolores, came into her presence, bearing a sealed letter upon a salver.
"Une lettre from monsieur le colonel, for Madam Carlyle," she said, in her curious melange of French and English. Bonnibel took the letter, and Dolores retreated to a little distance and stood awaiting her pleasure.
"What can he have to write to me of?" she thought, in some surprise, as she opened the envelope.
She read these words in a rather tremulous hand-writing: