“It has become my most painful task” (she began) “to have to inform you that our child died in the course of Friday night last, after only a few hours’ illness. Everything was done for it that could be done, but in vain. The doctor whom I had summoned was present when the end came. The funeral took place to-day, Monday. I enclose you the certificate of burial.
“It seemed to me that it would have been useless, as well as foolish, to bring you upwards of seven hundred miles merely in order that you might be present at the interment. All was over. Your presence could have availed nothing.
“With the death of my babe the strongest link in the chain which bound me to you, is broken. Had it lived I should not have taken the step I have now determined upon: which is, to at once go back to my own home, in my own country—which I ought never to have left.
“Both you and I have long been aware of the terrible mistake we made in taking upon ourselves the obligations of matrimony. It is not too late, however (or so I think and believe), to undo in some measure at least the folly of which we were mutually guilty. There is one way, and one only, by means of which this can be effected. It is for us to separate—it is for you to go your way, and I to go mine—and to be virtually dead to each other henceforward and for ever.
“I shall leave this place three hours hence on my way to New York, whence I shall take the steamer for Europe, but whether I shall proceed direct to Italy, or whether I shall first visit my mother’s relatives in England, I have not yet decided. In any case, it would be useless for you to follow me. My mind is fully made up, and nothing would induce me to return to you.
“When you left this place three months ago you put into my hands a number of blank signed cheques which I was to fill up at my own discretion for whatever sums I might find myself in need of while you were away. By means of one of the cheques in question I have drawn out the remaining balance standing to your credit in the bank, amounting to a trifle over five hundred pounds. You are not the man to begrudge me this sum, I am sure, for you were ever generosity itself towards me.
“And now I have nothing more to add, except to bid you farewell, and to ask you to believe that you have, in all sincerity, the best wishes for your future happiness and prosperity of one who regrets that she cannot love you as such a man as you deserves to be loved.
“GIOVANNA.
“P.S. I have arranged for this letter not to be posted till a week after my departure, so that by the time you read these lines I shall be halfway on my road to Europe.”
Alas, poor Alec! Wife and child lost to him at one fell blow! As regarded the latter, he could but bow his head in all humility, as it behoves all of us to do when our turn comes to be smitten, and breathe the words: “Thy will be done.” But Vanna? Oh, the callousness, the cruelty that breathed through almost every line of her letter! He had wept for the loss of his child, and it had been an infinite relief to him to do so—but his eyes were dry now; he had no tears left for her. It seemed rather as if her desertion of him served, during those first bitter hours, to kindle in his heart a dull smouldering fire of resentment, which was none the less intense in that it betrayed nothing of itself on the surface. Go after her, indeed!—try, with endearments and protestations, to induce her to return! Not a single step would he stir in pursuit. He and she had done with each other for ever.