After what occurred between us at our last few meetings on the sands of Carthew Bay, you probably think it due to you that I should have written you before now; and, indeed, my omission to do so would have been unpardonable had not my silence been dictated by certain considerations which I have found it impossible to ignore.
Into the nature of those considerations I have no wish to enter, nor would it, perhaps, be desirable that I should do so. It will be enough to state, in as few words as possible, to what conclusion they have gradually but surely led me. It is to this: That, unwittingly and unthinkingly, and as one walking blindfold, I have been guilty of the most deplorable mistake of my life.
Is there any need for me to be more explicit, or to enter into details which could not fail of being painful to us both? No, I am sure there is not. Your woman's instinct will have already revealed to you the nature of the mistake in question.
This I may add, that when I last parted from you I had no faintest prevision of what was so soon to happen. Perhaps it never would have happened had circumstances not called me away from Combe Fenton.
Yet who shall say it is not best for the happiness of both that the discovery should have been made before the time had gone by for remedying it! That is the light in which I trust you will endeavor to regard it.
In conclusion, my dear Miss Drelincourt, I can only ask you to believe in the sincerity of my contrition should my conduct be the cause of any temporary unhappiness to you. And that, in any case, it will be no more than temporary is the heartfelt hope of him who now subscribes himself
Your obedient and devoted servant,
Guy Ormsby.
When the foregoing had been written, it was sealed up, addressed in full to "Miss Drelincourt, Rosemount, near Combe Fenton, Devon," and taken charge of by Mrs. Jenwyn.
All that now remained to be done was to arrange for the handing over of the hundred pounds, and then for Mrs. Jenwyn to take her departure.