With deliberate hands she selected a sheet of paper, took up a pen, dipped it slowly into the ink, and wrote the address and date. Then she paused, bowed her head on her arm, and remained motionless. She was about to address her last letter to him. How should she begin it? Last month when she wrote she called him "My darling Charlie." That would not do now. And yet he was her darling more than ever. She never loved him so much as now. But she must not tell him so. She must let him think she had changed her mind, changed her heart towards him.
How should she begin?
She would set out without any formal beginning, and finish with no formal ending. She would say what she had to say without addressing him by name, and then just put her own name.
She waited a little while to think what she should say, and then wrote a few lines, and was surprised to find it so easy to dismiss finally all she held dear. She did not sigh or weep as she wrote, and nothing could be simpler or more direct than her words. They were:
"Ever since I heard of the great changes which have taken place with you of late, I have felt that all between us must be at an end. Even if I could bear the weight of your new position, I would not, and in any case I should be unworthy of the place. It is not you who have changed, but I. You must not write to me or come to me again. I will not see you if you call. I will not answer you if you write. I shall always have a most friendly feeling towards you, but we must not meet. If you do not want the ring you gave me, I should like to keep it in memory of you.
"Marion Durrant."
She finished the letter in a firm hand, and without any unusual effort. She wrote more as if she was putting down the words of someone else. When she spoke of keeping the ring, she never thought of looking at it. Indeed, she had forgotten it was on one of the fingers that held steady the sheet of paper on which she wrote. It seemed to her she was writing about another person's ring, and that in making the unusual request she was thinking of the person on whose behalf she wrote, and not of the foolish proprieties of the case.
When the letter was signed, she put it in an envelope. How should she address it? She had not directed an envelope to him since the wreck. All her notes and letters to him had gone under cover to Dr. Rowland. Still, she felt as if she was acting for another, and not for herself. And yet she could not write down his new title. No. For the last time, and out of regard to--to old times, she would address him as--as she had done before that day he went away on that journey which had changed her inward life and the outward look of all the world.
She always posted letters to him with her own hand. As soon as she had finished writing, she put on her hat and went downstairs. Her aunt was in the little breakfast-room as usual.
"I'm going to the post, aunt," said May, looking in from the doorway. "And I think I'll go for a short walk then."