It was a thin envelope. One sheet of paper replaced the usual three. So much the better. Four words would be sufficient to say all that she wanted to know. Vanna seated herself at the table, and bent eagerly over the sheet.
“My Dearest and Best—
“I have your last letter beside me, and have been reading it over and over, wondering how to answer all that is written between the lines. I can read it, Vanna; I have read it for a long time, but have not had courage to reply. You are too sweet and unselfish to allow yourself to write what is really in your thoughts, but I know you so well—you are no calm, equable, cold-blooded saint; you must have known many moments of bitterness, of anger, of resentment. I know it; I understand; I bless you for your patience. Why have I not come home to you? That is the question you are asking me across the world; the question I can almost hear spoken in my ear. You know by my letters that I am miserable and alone; you must have heard by this time that Brentford is anxious to get back. He wrote to me last mail. It is for me as senior partner to make my choice, and I have made it. I wrote to-day to say that I preferred to stay on—”
The paper trembled in Vanna’s hand; her lips lost their curves and straightened into a thin red line. She shut her eyes for a moment before she could see clearly to continue her reading:
“There! it is out. It is terrible to write it. I feel as if with the writing I have cut myself off from the best and happiest years of my life. For that is what it means, Vanna—the end! I have suffered tortures this last year, fighting it out, arguing it over and over again in my heart. I could not have borne it if it had not been for your letters, and yet in a fashion they have added to my suffering. If ever a man loved a woman, with his soul and strength, I have loved you. I have waited eight years, and it would have seemed as a day if there had been hope at the end. I would wait twenty years to gain you in the end. But, Vanna, when hope is dead!... I am very sad, very lonely; I miss you every hour, but I dare not come home to endure a worse pain. The years are passing; my youth is over; I cannot face a solitary age. Vanna, dearest, I promised you to be honest. I swore it. I must keep my word. If the best is denied me, I must be content with what I can have. There is a girl here—”
Vanna’s arm dropped on to the table, the fluttering sheet fell from her fingers, the dull, heavy thuds with which her heart had been beating for the last few minutes seemed suddenly to cease. She lifted her hand to her head, and brushed back her hair.
“A girl!” For one moment the room seemed to swim; consciousness appeared about to desert her, the next she was tinglingly alert, devouring the remaining words with hot, smarting eyes.
”—The daughter of our Colonel. I have seen a good deal of her these last months. She is not pretty, but she is sweet and kind, and has an echo of your charm. If I tried, I think I could love that girl. Vanna, I am going to try!... Do you despise me? Do you think me a faithless hound? Can you understand in the faintest degree that it is just because you have shown me what love can mean that I cannot live my life alone? Will you care to write to me still? I don’t know; I can’t tell. I dare not think how you may feel. I, who longed above all else in life to shield and guard you, to have to deal you this blow!... Forgive me, Vanna—my dearest, dearest love...”
Vanna laid the letter on the table once more, and raised a grey face, from which the lingering youth had been stricken at a blow. Her eyes stared through her window. The dull vista of chimney-tops stretched away into an illimitable distance. Dun banks of smoke hung pall-like over the city. The rain was falling.