"He, too, was the means of breaking off the Curzon Street affair. I must write there at once. I have behaved badly in not doing so before. I'll write the moment I get home. Yes, I must write when I get back, and then I'll put the affair out of my mind altogether, for good and ever."
Upon getting to the house, he went to the library and read over Dora Ashton's letter once more, slowly. He gathered no new impression from this second reading. Her resolution to put an end to the engagement seemed to him more strong than at first. That was the only change he noticed in the effect of the letter upon him. It was as cool and business-like and complete as could be. He was too much of a gentleman to give expression in his mind to any fault-finding with the woman to whom he had been engaged, and whom he had behaved so badly towards the other evening, but it seemed quite certain to him now that Dora Ashton was a girl of great cleverness and good sense and beauty--but no heart.
He did not at all like the task before him, but it must be done. When the letter was finished, it ran:
"My Dear Miss Ashton,
"I got your letter. It was very good of you to write to me in so kind and unreproaching a spirit, and I thank you with all my heart for your merciful forbearance. My conduct, my violence on Thursday evening, must always be a sorrow and a mystery to me. I only indistinctly recollect what I said, but I feel and know my words were perfectly monstrous and cruelly unjust. I feel most bitterly that no apology of mine can obliterate the impression my insanity must have made on you. To say I am profoundly sorry is only to say that I am once more in my right mind. I must in the most complete and abject manner beg your pardon for my shameful violence on Thursday evening. I must not even try to explain that violence away. I ask your pardon as an expression of my own horror of my conduct and of my remorse. But I do not hope for your forgiveness, I do not deserve it, I will not accept it. I shall bear with me in expiation of my offence the consciousness of my unpardonable conduct, and the knowledge that it remains unpardoned. Even lenity could ask no more indulgent treatment of my monstrous behaviour.
"As to terminating the engagement between us I have nothing to do but accept your decision, and since you ask it as a favour, the only favour you ever asked of me, I must receive your decision as irrevocable. I will not make any unpleasantness here by even referring to the difference of the ending I had in the hope of my mind. As you very justly say, the least said now the better. I shall say not a word to anyone about the immediate subject of this letter except to my mother. On that you may rely. I must tell her. You, I suppose, will inform Mrs. and Mr. Ashton (if they do not know of it); nobody else need hear of the abandonment of our designs. Let us by all means meet as you suggest, as though we never had been more than the best of friends, and were (as I hope we shall be) the best of friends still. I also quite agree with you about the notes, &c. Burn and destroy them. I will most scrupulously burn your letters, of which I have a few. This letter will I suppose be the last of the series.
"In a little time I trust we may meet again, but not just now for both our sakes.
"Yours ever most sincerely,
"John Hanbury."
When he had finished the letter he closed it without reading it over. "When one reads over a letter like this," he thought, "one grows nice about phrases and tries to alter, and finally tears up. I am satisfied that if I tried all day long I should do no better than this. I shall post it myself when I go out. That letter is a great weight off my mind, and now I am much less disinclined to break the matter to my mother. When that is over I shall feel that I am free."