Chapter Twenty Three.
I Make a Discovery.
Reader, I must take you still further into my confidence. What you have already read is strange, but certain things which subsequently happened to me were even still stranger.
I held that astounding letter in my hand. My eyes were riveted upon it.
The words written there were puzzling indeed. A dozen times I read them through, agape with wonder.
The communication, upon the notepaper of the Bath Hotel at Bournemouth, was dated June 4, 1891—five years before—and ran as follows:—
“Dear Mr Heaton,—
“I very much regret that you should have thus misunderstood me. I thought when we met at Windermere you were quite of my opinion. You, however, appear to have grown tired after the five months of our engagement, and your love for me has suddenly cooled; therefore our paths in life must in future lie apart. You have at least told me the truth honestly and straightforwardly. I, of course, believed that your declarations were true, and that you really loved me truly, but alas! it is evidently not so. I can only suffer in silence. Good-bye for ever. We shall never, never meet again. But I tell you, Wilford, that I bear you no malice, and that my prayers will ever be for your welfare and your happiness. Perhaps sometimes you will give a passing thought to the sorrowful, heart-broken woman who still loves you.