“Nothing,” said the colonel. “Stick to your resolution, and let Claudia Nevill proceed at her own sweet will. She’ll marry some foreign notability or other, I expect, now that she’s in search of big game. Then you’ll be entirely free of her.”
Dudley laughed again, and soon afterwards, much to his relief, the conversation drifted into an easier channel. Her letter, however, remained in his pocket unopened. What words of mad despair, he wondered, did it contain?
He sat finishing his breakfast and chatting about various subjects. But his thoughts were of her—always of her.
When they rose, his two guests went out to see after their guns, while he, remaining behind upon some pretext, tore open the letter.
It was brief, and had evidently been penned in one of those moments of remorse which must come sooner or later to such a woman.
“You are cruel to leave me like this,” she wrote. “Surely, if you really loved me, you would not care what the world might say. I have been foolish, I know, but am now penitent. I see the folly of it all—the folly of not keeping my secret and playing the hypocrite like other women. Surely love is not forbidden between us because you happen to hold an official position! Return to me, Dudley—for I love you!”
He sighed, then, crushing the letter in his hand, he flung it into the fire, murmuring:
“No. She’s played me false—false!”
He recollected what the colonel had said in regard to the Grand-Duke Stanislas, and saw with chagrin that the world was pitying him.
Before the blazing logs he stood, watching the leaping flames consume the letter. When the last spark had died from the black crackling tinder, he sighed again, and reluctantly went out to join his guests.